No Labels: Civility in Political Discourse w/ Nancy Jacobson

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Announcer: There are few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek. Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward. Now, here is Chris Meek.

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Chris: Hello. I'm Chris Meek, and you've tuned to this week's episode of Next Steps Forward. As always, it's great to have you with us. Our guests today are Nancy Jacobson and Ryan Clancy. I'm also joined by my good friend, Jeremy Wien. Not only is Jeremy taking his first turn as a co-host, but this is first time in nearly four years that Next Steps Forward has been on the air that we've had a co-host. Jeremy Wien is the managing partner of Moo Point Capital Management and a former vice president and head of VIX trading with JPMorgan Chase.

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I'd also be remiss if I didn't tell everybody that Jeremy is a World Series of Poker champion. I just want to get that out there for you, Jeremy. I'll give you a little plug. I was in Vegas this week actually warming up. Nancy Jacobson is a former Democratic fundraiser whose first political fundraiser occurred as a student at my beloved alma mater, Syracuse University, Go Orange, when she organized an event to support then-Senator Gary Hart's 1984 presidential effort. Nancy supported Al Gore's presidential campaign in 1988 and Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign.

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She was the finance director of the 1992 Presidential Inaugural Committee before serving as a Democratic National Committee's finance chair. From 1995 to 2010, she was the national finance director for Senator Evan Bayh and oversaw his political and fundraising strategy during his 2008 presidential bid. Nancy Jacobson has been named one of the 50 most powerful people in DC and referred to as one of the most powerful women in Washington. She founded No Labels in 2010 with the express goal of promoting bipartisanship and putting problem solving ahead of politics.

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Ryan Clancy is the chief strategist of No Labels. Prior to his role at No Labels, he was a speechwriter for then Vice President Joe Biden and then Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke. He has developed corporate narratives and executive positioning plans for Fortune 500 companies and advised political reform groups and candidates on their communication strategies. Ryan has also worked on various book projects such as No Labels' Policy Playbook: For America's Next President, the New Center's Idea to Recenter America, and Elton John's memoir, Love Is the Cure: On Life, Loss, and the End of AIDS.

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Ryan received his bachelor's degree from Villanova University. Nancy, Ryan, and Jeremy, welcome to Next Steps Forward. Thanks for being here today. We know how busy you are, so we really appreciate it. No Labels' book, Common Sense, begins with the words, "Most Americans are decent, caring, reasonable, and patriotic people, but we do not see those traits reflected in our politics today." How and why do we reach this point in which our politicians don't seem to reflect our best traits, even though they were elected by their constituents?

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Nancy: You want me to start?

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Chris: Sure, go right ahead.

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Nancy: Listen, I think this has been so many years in the making. Things have devolved over so many years. People say when Newt Gingrich told the leaders not to live in Washington anymore, and people left the city, and they no longer sent their kids to schools or did the sports with other kids and participated in the community, that started to wear it down. There's been so many things. When President Obama came in and ended up passing the first social program in our nation's history just with one party, the Obamacare Health Act, no Republicans voted for it.

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That was the first time a social program had been just passed by one party, and then you saw the rise of the Tea Party. That was a new phenomenon, seeing them rallying on Capitol Hill and being very agitated. That really led to, and I'd love to also hear what Ryan thinks, but this time of passing big, important legislations just with one party's involvement, which is really a recipe for dissension and combat with the other side. Those are some of my thoughts, and I don't know if Ryan wants to--

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Ryan: To Nancy's point, when we started No Labels, one of the things we went back and looked at is just major changes that happened in the 20th century, whether you're talking about the creation of Medicare or Social Security or the big tax reform in the '80s or what they did to shore up Social Security, it was always both parties at the table. Why is that important? It's important because a lot of the time, it's divided government, and you need both parties to get things done.

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The other thing is, when you jam through major changes with just one party, then the second that change comes through, the other party goes about trying to undo it. You've seen this pattern now, whether it was the Trump tax cuts in 2017, all Republicans, whether it was the Biden Inflation Reduction Act, all Democrats. You get into this cycle where we're just jamming through these massive changes, and it's not clear any of them are going to be sustained until the next party comes into power.

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Chris: Nancy, as the founder of No Labels, would you explain its mission and your vision and what the specific impetus was for launching the organization?

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Nancy: I think it was right after, it was in 2009 time that we started thinking about it, and we formally launched it in 2010. It really was this new phenomenon of passing legislation just with one party, a big major social program, then the eruption that was demonstrated through the Tea Party. It was a feeling, it was time to figure out a way to bring leaders together. That was the impetus, is knowing we're going to have to find a way to bring Republican and Democratic leaders together. Nobody, in fact, there's no organization in the entire United States of America that's working to do this.

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Every single political organization is trying to attack the other side, throw black paint. Nobody's trying to do it. We just believed that you had to build a voice for this sort of politics to be able to live, that really what it is is representing the common sense majority. It's the majority of people in this country that just want their problem solved and want government to do it. That was the impetus that finally that community needed a voice in this country.

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Chris: There's an old saying that I think we're pretty familiar with, 24 hours is a lifetime in politics. The year 2010 seems like countless lifetimes ago. Did you imagine at that time that the political climate would get so much more divided and combative in these intervening 14 years?

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Nancy: I hate to say that I did feel it. I remember this with, we searched out Joe Lieberman to be the head of this organization and very intentionally because I always thought if it got bad enough, he would be the voice, the leader that both sides could pay attention to. Yes, so always did. I didn't see where the brakes were going to be put on. It just seemed every cycle it got worse and worse. I think actually we're going to see the bottom come out after this election. That's the thinking.

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Chris: Unfortunately, it feels like you're spying with the bottom coming out of this. Ryan, before we dive into a policy question with you, you have to tell us how you made the leap of writing policy books and papers after writing Elton John's memoir.

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Ryan: I came up as a speechwriter. Then when I left the administration, I kept doing that kinds of work. At one of the places I was at, his AIDS foundation was a client of ours, and they decided they wanted to write a book. That's how I got into that. Interestingly enough, that's how I got to No Labels. Initially really just focused on writing. Nancy bought me on, I think in 2010 to work on, it was called Make Congress Work, which was the first reform booklet No Labels ever put out. The rest is history.

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Chris: Did you have to meet Elton John? He seems like a fascinating individual.

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Ryan: We had one guy from our team who did the interview. We had one four-hour transcript to work off of, and from that, we wrote the book.

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Chris: Got it. Thank you for sharing that. All right. Now, let's get into the policy question. What are the core values and principles that guide No Labels policy questions, and what are No Labels' top policy concerns and positions?

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Ryan: One of the things we released over the course of the summer, so I'm talking about the summer of '23 here, we released Common Sense, which was named after, of course, the famous Thomas Paine booklet that kicked off the American Revolution. What that was, we spent a year talking to the public, doing extensive surveys at tens of thousands of voters to try to understand the issues they really cared about, and what we ended up with is these 30 ideas that were in this booklet that we think really fairly represent, this is where most of the country wants to go on most issues. To the extent that there's a blueprint for reaching the common sense majority, it's in that booklet.

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Jeremy: Thanks, Ryan. Just as I lead into my question, I want to just for context, I'm coming at this from a center-left perspective, let's say a Jared Polis Democrat, if you will. When you talk about the common sense majority, I certainly agree with the goal of aspirationally trying to do that. I think many Americans do. At the risk of sounding partisan, it does seem like one party's elected officials right now are at least trying to govern, whether you agree with their policy solutions or not. The other party's elected officials are largely not all, maybe trying to find camaraderie in irritating the right people and getting cable news hits and sound bites and things like that.

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That party's voters are rewarding them at the ballot box in primaries and with donations. My question is, practically speaking, how do we get past that problem so we can even begin to try to bridge the divide on the actual issues and make some of the progress on those policies like the ones you advocate for in the book, many of which would probably have majority support if they got an up or down national referendum vote, which is obviously not how our system works. How do you think we can do that practically?

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Ryan: Look, you got at something that is a really big problem in the system, and I think we're probably going to talk about this later, but you start looking at a lot of people throw out a lot of structural reforms out there. How do you fix the system? How do you diminish extremism? One of the things you run into when you do this as long as Nancy and I have been doing it is you realize that some of the things that are thrown out there as solutions actually would perpetuate the problems. Let me give you one example.

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We've all heard about the idea of campaign finance reform. One of the big campaign finance bills that was being pushed in Washington would have publicly matched small dollar donations six to one. Sounds great, right? Except here's the problem. If you look at the top ten members of Congress in America by small-dollar donations, it is all the worst members. It is Marjorie Taylor Greene. It is Matt Gaetz. It is AOC. It's the most extreme members of Congress. The problem is that kind of behavior in a lot of different ways gets rewarded in our system. No labels in many different ways is just trying to create better incentives to actually reward problem-solving.

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Nancy: I would also say, Jeremy, it's interesting. The problems are in both parties. I think the extremists in both parties are part of the problem. Right now we're going to see more of the Republican extremists that are capturing the flag and trying to create havoc. If the Democrats get control of the House, you'll see their extremists. I think there's good leaders on both sides.

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That's what we've seen in the Problem Solvers Caucus. I think Speaker Johnson did a great job getting that aid bill passed and pushing through some of those extreme voices. The truth is I think what you're going to see us focus on a lot more in the time to come is figuring out a way to pipe down those extreme voices.

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Jeremy: Sure. Just one follow-up on that. I do agree for sure there are extreme voices in both parties. I do obviously give Speaker Johnson a lot of credit for pushing back on that, which to me is among the most important issues in the world right now to support Ukraine and our other allies. I would say that maybe it feels like the big difference, in my view, at least, is that those extremists on the right have more influence in their party and certainly would have more influence in a potential second Trump administration than they do, let's say, in the current Biden administration.

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I agree there's problems on both sides. I'm not sure how that impacts your view as to, or if it matters where the bigger problem lies. There is a problem on both sides for sure. I'm not sure it's quite equal, and I don't know how that impacts your view on the best path forward.

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Nancy: I think we would believe it's equal. I think Biden's pull to the left with the student loan forgiveness and all of these other things, and his abandoning this longtime ally, Israel. People in our community would probably say the extreme voices have had a very big role. Unfortunately, the center has disappeared from the Democratic Party. That was where I grew up, spent time at the Democratic Leadership Council, always working. That is gone. The thought with no labels is the new evolution of the new center, which Ryan knows so much about. There's a new center now, and it has to include Republicans and Democrats working together. Our feeling is both extremes, not good, in different ways.

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Chris: Here's a question maybe for both of you. With Democrats, Republicans, and people with other political affiliations and beliefs, how does no labels prioritize the issues and policies that you advocate for?

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Ryan: There's two ways to answer that. We've done a lot of work in Congress over the years, as Nancy mentioned, pulling together this problem-solvers group and allies in the Senate. Usually, when they can get to yes on an issue, we find ourselves advocating very strongly for whatever it is they're doing. That's one way we do it. The second way is we just try to create a pulse for the common sense majority to really understand what they care about. As I mentioned, that common sense booklet we pulled together, that was the result of tens of thousands of survey respondents.

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We tested hundreds of different issues to understand what it is people care about. One of the things that is striking is that the things people care about most, cost of living, power of border, it is often not what we're talking about on most days on the political network. We're talking about who is the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, that kind of nonsense. We're talking about various culture war stuff. Whereas most of the public is saying, "A dozen eggs is 50% more expensive than it was a couple of years ago. Can you talk to me about that?"

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Ryan: As far as I know, No Labels has never put forward a presidential candidate in the three previous presidential elections since its founding. Why was it so important to consider doing that this year?

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Nancy: Let's just also make clear, No Labels was just getting a ballot line. We would have offered the ballot line. We wouldn't have run a presidential campaign, but it was just making it possible for the citizens of this country to have a choice. We were laughed at two and a half years ago when we made the prediction that it would be a Trump-Biden rematch. Most people thought we were crazy. Trump was never going to run again. Biden was too old. That was never going to happen. We really saw into the future and believed that.

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We realized, we saw numbers with testing with the public, numbers that had never been seen before in the history of the country with an appetite from the American people for another choice. Nobody wanted these choices. I think it's borne fruit to this day. I don't think people are happy or comfortable with these choices. We just thought acting on behalf of the majority of Americans that were not wanting these choices, we thought it was important to offer a choice as a unity ticket to unite the country.

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Our goals have always been, "How do you unite the country? How do you figure out a way to bring the two sides together?" Nobody else in this country is doing this. You're going to see the most divisive election of our lifetime happen. In the aftermath, after this election, you're going to see the most divisive time. It could be that people don't accept the results of the election. It could be that people don't want to govern with who's ever president. Unless there's a group like No Labels trying to bring this together, I don't know what happens. Rayn, do you?

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Ryan: I agree.

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Chris: Nancy, I'm seeing you here as a visionary. 14 years ago, you saw the divisiveness we'd be in today. 2.5 years ago, you saw a Trump-Biden rematch. Any insight for Jeremy in terms of when he should take a hit or fold or hold them?

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Nancy: Right, for his tournament. I'll have to think about that.

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Jeremy: I appreciate the effort, Chris. Any help I can get on the belt is appreciated. In terms of the last question and understanding the approach to this presidential cycle, when we didn't know who those candidates would be, I think obviously trying to secure ballot access for that potential third-party candidate or non-party candidate made sense. If the two parties nominated candidates who were unacceptable, outside the mainstream, unfit for office, whatever exact terminology we're going to use, I think we all know the reasons that some people would consider Donald Trump to fall into that category, even people who generally support him do.

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I think had the Democrats, let's say, nominated Bernie Sanders, which was very possible in both 2016 and 2020 and would have been possible had President Biden not run, in a different way, I can understand how Bernie Sanders would be scary to a lot of people as president, myself included, in terms of how it might change the relationship between government and the citizenry. For President Biden, I think we all wish he were younger, for sure. He does seem, at least to me, like a mainstream Democratic candidate of the last generation, center-left on social policy, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, but pushing back against the extremes on things like defund the police.

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Police funding has increased federally under President Biden. Economic issues, again, certainly, you guys mentioned earlier that the Inflation Reduction Act was passed along a one-party vote. The other legislation, infrastructure CHIPS Act, modest gun reforms were bipartisan. Then on foreign policy, strongly supported NATO, but not deploying American troops.

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One could argue that he's basically been the second term of George H.W. Bush in that regard. My question is, whether you like President Biden or not, and love his policies or not, what is it that the group found so offensive for lack of a better term, so objectionable about him as to put him in that category where it was worth potentially risking helping Donald Trump, unintentionally, of course, but not knowing exactly how that No Labels candidate might siphon votes one way or the other.

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Nancy: I'll answer them, Ryan, you fill in. Listen, it really wasn't what we thought, it really was what the American people thought. We saw these numbers, and this was two years ago. Now, if you look at it now, Donald Trump is leading in every swing state poll. We saw it two years ago, the public, it doesn't resonate. Anything you're saying in the way and your view of how you depict him, it doesn't seem to resonate with the public. The public didn't have a fondness for him two years ago. Ryan, you may want to answer more in detail.

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Ryan: Yes, this is something we said throughout the course of our ballot access effort, that this was not No Labels making a judgment about either candidate, this was about No Labels trying to provide a alternative that the political system absolutely refused to offer. You mentioned the word offensive, I'll tell you one thing I find really offensive, which is the way both parties stoop to almost any level you can imagine up to and including going in front of Nancy's house and running a billboard by her house, accusing her of perpetuating MAGA hate, or hijacking our website to make it look like No Labels with some white nationalist group.

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A lot of the people that were behind this are the people that are out in the news saying, "Hey, we're the protectors of democracy." Then behind the scenes, they are doing the most low, slanderous stuff you can imagine. The thing I think I have a real problem with, and this is somebody who came up in democratic politics, is democracy means the public gets to choose. You don't go out and try to prevent groups from getting on the ballot, from preventing groups from competing. You win by having the best ideas and the best candidates.

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Unfortunately, what both parties did, and if I'm being honest, though, particularly the Democrats, about a year and a half ago, the party collectively decided it's Biden, and that's it. There's going to be no other democratic choices that can meaningfully compete in the primary. There's going to be no other independent choices. Now, we see the consequences of that. There's a big story this morning in Politico that interviewed two dozen Democratic operatives anonymously, of course, talking about how panicked they are about the president's political prospects. You really have nobody to blame but yourselves for that because you didn't provide an outlet for the public to have a choice.

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Chris: That takes us to a bigger question and an issue. Your hope, objective, and goal last year, end of this year, was to feel a bipartisan, centrist ticket on the 2024 presidential ballot, but candidates from both parties turned down your offer. Every person ever elected to their local city council or park board fantasizes about running for president. What happened there? Why would anyone step forward and avail themselves to No Label's reputation and resources?

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Nancy: I'll say, and then Ryan, listen, we've since discovered there was a tremendous intimidation campaign to a methodical campaign to put the fear of God into anybody contemplating this. You have to understand this is not China or Russia here, this is the United States of America. These thug-like groups banded together in a collaborative way and methodically tried to intimidate anybody from doing it. We couldn't have predicted that. Here we thought we were providing an opportunity to get a choice that the country wanted. It's not like this country doesn't want this choice.

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They would love the opportunity to have a unifying ticket. Other people saw it different ways, and they wanted to interfere with the election and interfere with people's choice and methodically, lobby and scare the living bejesus out of anybody doing it. It's all documented. We've been privy to see this up close now. It all happened.

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Chris: Does the absence of its own presidential candidate mean that No Label's involvement in this year's presidential campaign is off the table?

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Nancy: Listen, we were never going to run a candidate. We were just going to offer a ballot line. The best service we can provide for the next six months or so is to just be the honest broker, letting people know, what does Donald Trump think, what does Joe Biden think, throw in Kennedy as well. I think we're a trusted broker. We're not a partisan hack group. We just care about the country.

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We think that's the best use. I know Ryan is spending a lot of time, and he's going to be in the weeks ahead preparing our community for all the issues that may come up on the June 27th debate and then the September debate. We feel as a movement, that's our responsibility is to educate people and alert them to the key issues that affect their lives.

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Chris: That's a great segue. Where can our listeners and viewers find the honest broker in your policy recommendations?

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Ryan: Nolabels.org, certainly. We've got all the ideas up there from Common Sense. The other thing we do is every week we host what we call our No Labels Talk Series, where we'll bring in people to talk about the issues that we know people care about. We were just talking about Iran last week. We're having another foreign policy discussion this week. We'll be getting into immigration, inflation, and other things. As Nancy mentioned, it is hard to find a forum where you can hear voices that really are not pushing an agenda. We really just want to provide a forum where people can speak honestly and get a sense of the facts.

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Chris: Maybe as a follow-up to that, Ryan, how does No Labels envision its role in shaping the future of American politics over the next decade?

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Ryan: Look, that's one of the things. It's been six weeks now since we stopped our 24 effort. We've been really thinking about where we go from here. The two things that we really have settled on that we think we can say with some confidence is what Nancy said earlier about our fear about what's going to happen after this election is something we're really spending a lot of time preparing for. Because in different ways, and again, I'm not making an equivalency between President Trump and President Biden, the former President Trump, but they are sending a very similar message to their voters in this respect.

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They are telling their voters, "Vote for me or it's over. Democracy's dead." What's going to happen is after the election, one side's going to lose. They're going to have been told for the last year that it's over. Every force in the losing party is going to encourage a posture of maximum resistance. Because we've already said the other party is evil. You don't work with evil. We want to make sure that there's a community there that is willing to govern. Because whoever comes in next January, they're still going to have to deal with things. We're still going to have a border that is insecure.

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We're still going to have these fiscal issues that are growing. Of course, we were just speaking to a really well-respected national security expert last week. He said in his mind this is the 1930s. We're in the 1930s, you had Japan and Germany, and Italy. Today it's Iran, Russia, and China. Really threatening America across a lot of fronts. You need some leaders willing to govern. No Labels is really going to be in the business of finding and supporting those leaders.

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Chris: It's fascinating. You said the phrase, it's over. I can't tell you the number of texts I'm now receiving for political solicitations saying, it literally starts off, if you don't read this text, it's over, dot, dot, dot. Fear mongers. One area I know that No Labels has been successful and has been recognized as being instrumental, which we mentioned earlier, is in the creation of the Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus. Nancy, would you share how the Problem Solvers Caucus came together, what it has accomplished, and what you expect from it in the future?

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Nancy: We launched the organization in 2010. Columbia University, 1,000 citizens from all 50 states on their own dime came to Columbia University when the movement got launched. Very soon thereafter, we knew that you could shout at the gates of Congress. If you didn't have allies in Congress, it goes nowhere. We started in 2011. We're good matchmakers, and we started bringing congressmen together with congressmen. Nobody inside the Congress, no party leader wants you fraternizing with the other side. That's part of this problem here.

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We started putting these people together. As anything happens, I always say, when you get dancers together, they want to dance. When you get legislators together, they want to legislate. There was a pent-up demand to start working on things. This group then started to do bills together. When 2017 came along, Josh Gottheimer came to town. We knew Josh for so many years, and we realized that he was a different type of leader.

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We made sure that Josh was the chair of the Problem Solvers, and Tom Reed is his partner, and then we stepped out of the room. We haven't been in that room in all these years because this group of members had to feel proprietary. They had to feel that it was theirs, which they do. That was rewarding to see that come together, them doing lots of good work. I think our best innovation that nobody knows about was the realization bills go from the House to the Senate, but these congressmen never know these senators. I think we matched senators with congressmen.

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That was a very fruitful partnership because that led to the infrastructure bill. Let's remember. I know that Biden and everybody takes credit for that, but if we remember clearly, Biden and Schumer wanted the Build Back Better one-party bill, the Build Back Better bill of trillions of dollars. Those relationships of House and Senate created this rump group that created an alternative, which was the bipartisan infrastructure bill. We know the story. It started with Josh Gottheimer and Senator Bill Cassidy. Then they handed it over, their ideas, to Senator Portman and Senator Sinema.

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They cobbled together this group that was able to defeat the Build Back Better, even when, if we remember, they had their bills. It passes. They go to the White House, and even at that point, President Biden said, "Wait a minute." You can pass that after he signed the bill. They left. A couple hours later, he came back, and he said, "You know what? You're going to have to link the Build Back Better to the infrastructure bill. I need both of these things, not just one."

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It was really, at that moment, the heroic activity of Josh Gottheimer leading eight other Democratic members to de-link that bill, to de-link it and have it come back through, and our terrific Republican congresspeople, many who lost their seats for that vote, that were able to supplant the votes taken away by the extreme Democratic members that wouldn't vote for that. I know now everybody claims credit, and that was our bill, but it really wasn't. It really was the doings of these amazing, heroic, bipartisan leaders in the Congress. I think we tend to forget how that all happened.

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Chris: Isn't it amazing that you have to call them heroic leaders when it's them doing their job? That's what they're supposed to do. To your point, they're there to legislate, they're there to work together, they're there to represent we, the people. Yet it takes organizations like yourself to get involved and try and fix these problems, which is fascinating. You can't put a Band-Aid on it. It's got to be taking a sledgehammer to it and rebuild and start over because, to your point again, Nancy, there are people out there that want to do what's right for the people, whatever side of the aisle they are.

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I always say I don't have a D or an R after my name, I've got A for American because that's who comes first, and that's how it should be. Again, just really thrilled to have you both here today and truly appreciate the work that you and the organization are doing. Maybe as a follow-up to that, what strategies does No Labels employ to promote bipartisan cooperation and reduce political polarization within Congress and elsewhere?

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Nancy: Listen, we're always promoting these members that are willing to work in this way. I was on the phone earlier this morning with a great Democratic member that knows no matter who's elected, they will look to govern with whatever party gets into the White House. We have hundreds and thousands of people across this country. This movement has now grown over 14 years. Even though we weren't successful with this ballot initiative, we've probably quadrupled in our support and people from across this country.

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We expose many of these great leaders to these wonderful citizens and leaders all across this country to give these people support from our members. Remember, there's no other group in the entire United States that will applaud and support the members that are looking to work with the other side to solve problems. That is the definition of government. Government's role is to solve problems. That's the reason we have government.

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Ryan: One of the things No Labels always talks about is political courage. That is in very short supply. I think it's really important to define what we mean by that. Which is today, if I am a Democrat, there is nothing easier than going on MSNBC and just preaching to the choir and denouncing Republicans. It's the same thing if I'm a Republican, and I go on Fox News. The hard thing is being the Republican who's saying, "You know what, I'm going to work with the Democrats even though I know talk radio and my whole base and everybody else is coming after me. By the way, I might get a primary challenge."

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It's the same thing on the Democratic side. Again, that goes back to what we talked about, this strategy after the election. I hate to say this, but it's true that if President Biden wins, and you are a Republican who's willing to work with him in Congress, or if President Trump wins, and you are a Democrat who says, "I am willing to work with you," you will be enemy number one according to the base of your party. They will come after you. They will try to get you out of your seat. What No Labels really does is, in a lot of different ways, is try to protect those members and make sure that they get rewarded for this leadership and not punished.

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Jeremy: We've talked a lot about coming together within the Congress. In terms of coming together as a country, as a people, as a community, I think that's something that most Americans, certainly a substantial majority, do want to see happen. I'm 39 years old. The two formative, defining events of my life, of anyone's life who's in my age range, are 9-11 and COVID. 9-11 was less than a year after the most contentious presidential election of anyone's lifetime who was alive at that point. After the attack, I think George W. Bush had a 91% approval rating or something in that range.

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I can personally, strongly dislike President Bush on September 10th of 2001. Four or five days later, when he was at ground zero, and he grabbed the bullhorn, and he said, "I hear you. Soon the people who knock down these buildings will hear from all of us." I would have jumped through my TV and crawled over broken glass for him. When you contrast the sacrifices that we as a nation were willing to make 3,000 Americans died on 9-11. The government told us, now we'll wait an extra hour or two every time we fly into perpetuity. We all said, of course, anything we can do after such an unspeakable tragedy.

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Contrast that with COVID where more than a million Americans died, the government told us to wear masks in some situations and for a finite period of time. Half the country called it tyranny and threatened to revolt. My question, I'm an internal optimist. I think the Atlanta Falcons still have a chance to win the Super Bowl this year. When I contrast, though, I think about the contrast between America's response to 9-11 compared to COVID, only less than 20 years apart, it's tough to be optimistic about coming together and unifying.

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You seem to think it's possible, I hope. The question really is, let's say in the next 10 to 20 years, how do you think practically that could happen? Do you think it would take a specific impetus like a world war or another pandemic? Do you think it's just a simmering down of tensions over time? How do you see that maybe playing out in practice?

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Nancy: Listen, I think it's going to be leadership. We will stand by two and a half years ago making the prediction that the country didn't want Trump or Biden, that these were not the choices. I think those people's time will sunset. One of them will become president. They will not be able to run again. There's wonderful leaders coming up on the Democratic side and the Republican side. Listen, people will try the shenanigans again, I'm sure, and try to sort of make it seem as if do all the fear-mongering.

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I think by that point, people, they don't want to accept that anymore. One leader will emerge to lead this country. I think people are going to be so tired and exhausted of everything that's been happening now and what will happen with this next president, whoever gets in, I think will turn a page. I really believe that. I'm very hopeful that we just got to get through these last leaders, and we turn a page, and people will be hungry for strong leadership.

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Chris: You're an internal optimist like Jeremy?

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Nancy: Yes.

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Chris: Do you think the Falcons win the Super Bowl?

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Nancy: That I can't comment on.

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Chris: How about my beloved Dallas Cowboys? It's our year.

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Nancy: Ryan, what are your thoughts?

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Ryan: I'm a Giants fan, so I'm going to come down very strongly and say that is not going to happen.

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Chris: It's just a phase, Ryan. You'll outgrow it, I promise you. President Biden and former President Trump quickly agreed recently to two debates, but seems like one of their objectives in moving so quickly was prevent a third party candidate, obviously RFK Jr., from appearing on the same debate stage with them. How much should the public demand that independent and smaller party candidates be included in presidential debates, and what should be considered the threshold for viability?

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Nancy: Ryan?

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Ryan: Look, I think the big thing is they should have a chance. It looks like these debates are not going to happen under the heading of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has been the non-profit that governs them. Now, they had a standard, which was you had to be polling at 15% and be on the ballot in enough states where you could get over 270 electoral votes.

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Is that too high a threshold? It might be. I think the one thing that we believe very strongly is that we need some new voices in our political system. Whether that means creating more of an opening for third-party candidates to get on presidential debate stages, or whether it speaks to just what we're doing. Both parties just have such powerful forces that enforce these orthodoxies that just don't fit where most people are. Look, I'll just give you one example so we can talk about issues. If you are a voter right now who cares about, say, you want a secure border, but you also want a humane immigration system, you don't have a choice right now that's going to offer you those things.

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You have President Trump who says he's going to give you border security, but he also says he's going to deport a couple million immigrants. On the other hand, you have President Biden who has overseen the biggest increase in unauthorized border crossings in American history. Why should that be our choice? The answer is because that's what the bases of both parties demand. They will not let those leaders operate beyond those bounds. We just need more voices in the system.

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Chris: With respect to time, we're running short here. Jeremy, I want to make sure you get your next couple of questions in. I'm going to skip ahead and have you go.

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Jeremy: Yes, sure, I appreciate it. It's really one broad one that I can for lack of a better term, put a quarter in the machine and let you guys run with. I think it's fair to say that many Americans agree with the stated goals of No Labels in trying to find compromise and trying to bring us together, being willing to make some sacrifices from their specific policy goals to get something that's more consensus.

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From a practical, strategic perspective, I know you guys started high, obviously started, but aimed high during this cycle on the presidential level. In terms of starting a bit lower down, I don't mean school boards and librarians, but at the level of Congress, at the level of the Senate, in such a tightly divided Congress, five, six, seven Congress representatives, one or two senators, independent caucuses like that could control the agenda, could decide what hits the floor, could make sure that any legislation that passes is a bit more centrist and a bit more bipartisan.

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Have you thought at all, in general, about that concept, and specifically, maybe the Evan McMullin model in Utah, where you go into, not a swing district, where you might already have a more moderate representative or senator, but maybe into Marjorie Taylor Greene's district with a center-right independent, and maybe the Democrats don't run a candidate, so that center-right independent gets most Democratic votes, a good bit of independent votes, and some Republicans, and of course, the opposite in AOC's districts.

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In the Senate, maybe there's an anti-Josh Hawley coalition that could get 50% plus one of the vote, because a Democrat really can't win statewide there, but maybe some of the Republican elected officials are to the right of the median voter. Then if and when you have that success, which, given No Label's substantial fundraising and intellectual heft and the leadership, having the experience that you all have, I think that within a couple of election cycles, that kind of strategy would likely be successful, and then would bring in more. Is that the kind of thing that you guys have thought about and think could be put into practice as soon as 2026, I guess, at this point?

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Nancy: Yes, you laid it out all perfectly. We definitely believe that's really where we should set our sights on. We believe the extremists are the target. We believe 2026 is the time, and the window, and somebody's just got to be the one that does the first breakthrough. I think you're right. Once you break through, once you can get a couple of these members that, by the way, because the Delta is so narrow, you could control what happens in that house. Once somebody can do that breakthrough, others will follow. I think what you laid out is exactly what we're thinking about.

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We're having a major meeting of the movement in December, after the election really as a way to restore peace and figure out how we get past the war and start to govern again. I think at that meeting, we'll lay out more of those thoughts. That's exactly what we're thinking. Something's got to give. Listen, you can't bat 1,000 all the time. We didn't fight about 1,000.

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It wasn't going to work on the presidential, but what we did get was an opportunity to spur a national discussion about this concept of maybe our leaders should not show allegiance 100% to a party, but maybe they should to the country, and maybe that means being an independent. It's gotten in the bloodstream. It's not easy to get a national conversation going in this country, but I think we did. I think that'll pave the way for this next breakthrough innovation. We can't rest until we let this succeed.

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Chris: Thanks. We have just a few minutes left. A two-part personal question for each of you. So many Americans have been turned off by politics, especially the current political climate as we've discussed, and they've tuned out and given up in the process. What keeps you motivated to continue fighting the good fight, and what makes you think you can win?

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Nancy: I know for myself, I live by a phrase, it's called tikkun olam, which is trying to repair the world. That's just all I've ever done in my life. Ever since going to college and after college, that's where I've spent my life in politics. There's obviously good days and bad days, and there's days you lose help. My mentor was Senator Lieberman, and I know that he never gave up in trying to see what's the art of the possible and what could be done.

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If people don't engage, we lose our country. To me, it's just baked in and understanding. Just like Senator Lieberman, they chased him out of the Democratic Party for his Senate race. He had to run as an independent, but he just never gave up throughout his entire life in believing there's good people on both sides. You've got to have the patience and the tenacity to try to keep bringing them together. Ryan?

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Ryan: I don't know if it's that I'm stubborn or optimistic or both. Look, I think whether you're just looking at the issues where there is more-- If you look at our Common Sense booklet, there is more agreement there than not. Even if you look at people's attitude, most Americans don't view their neighbors as enemy. They don't think of them as evil. Now, the problem is we do have a small minority on both sides that does think that way. If 70% of our country's thought like Marjorie Taylor Greene and AOC, then I would really be worried that there's no way out of this because that's the majority, but it's not.

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What we just have to do is mobilize enough people and make them recognize that if the common sense majority actually shows up and has its voices heard, their numbers are such that they can actually overwhelm and drown out the extremists. We'll still have the extreme people because, hey, it's a democracy, and you can say and think what you want, but they won't be the ones driving the train in our political system anymore.

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Chris: Nancy Jacobson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels, thank you so much for being with us today.

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Ryan: Thanks for having us.

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Chris: My buddy, Jeremy Wein, thanks for serving as my co-host. Thank you to our audience, which now includes people in more than 50 countries for joining us for another episode of Next Steps Forward. I'm Chris Meek. For more details on upcoming shows and guests, please follow me on Facebook at Facebook.com/ChrisMeekPublicFigure and an X at ChrisMeek_USA. We'll be back next Tuesday, same time, same place with another leader from the world of business, politics, public policy, sports, or entertainment. Until then, stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.

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Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show next Tuesday at 10 AM Pacific time and 1 PM Eastern time on the Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, make things happen in your life.

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