AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: With the election less than a week away, we’re continuing our conversation with Nina Turner, former Ohio state senator. She’s the founder of We Are Somebody, which has been out talking to voters in Ohio about early voting, voting hours and voting the whole ballot. She’s a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School. Her new piece for Newsweek is headlined “Calling Trump a Nazi Is Giving Our Own History a Pass. The Racism of MAGA Is American.”

AMY GOODMAN: I want to play for you, Nina Turner, recent comments by former first lady Michelle Obama, who campaigned with Kamala Harris in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Saturday.

MICHELLE OBAMA: So, to the men who love us, let me just try to paint a picture of what it will feel like if America, the wealthiest nation on Earth, keeps revoking basic care from its women, and how it will affect every single woman in your life. Your girlfriend could be the one in legal jeopardy if she needs a pill from out of state or overseas, or if she has to travel across state lines because the local clinic closed up. Your wife or mother could be the ones at higher risk of dying from undiagnosed cervical cancer because they have no access to regular gynecological care. Your daughter could be the one too terrified to call the doctor if she’s bleeding during an unexpected pregnancy. Your niece could be the one miscarrying in her bathtub after the hospital turned her away.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that is former first lady Michelle Obama. She and President Obama have been stumping around the country for Kamala Harris. Our guest is Nina Turner, former Ohio state senator and campaign — were you campaign manager of Bernie Sanders?

NINA TURNER: In 2020, I was one of his national co-chairs, along with Congressman Ro Khanna, Mayor Yulín Cruz from Puerto Rico, the great Puerto Rico, and also Ben Cohen, founder of — one of the founders of Ben & Jerry’s. It was a magnificent time. So, national surrogate in 2016 and national co-chair in 2020. Often, though, Amy, I do get that. “Did you manage the campaign?” At times, I felt like I was doing that.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, talk about those campaigns, the key issues there. Here, Michelle Obama is raising what many might not think about as much. Many others might be saying this is the sleeping giant, that Republicans, Democrats, overwhelmingly, in this country do care about reproductive rights, and despite the fact that President Trump now says he would veto a federal abortion ban, and his wife, Melania, put out a video saying that she is pro-abortion — I think people would be wrong to think that she did that behind his back, but probably with his filmmakers in promoting her book, because he sees how serious this issue is for people across the country, though it was his Supreme Court, he proudly said, overturned Roe v. Wade.

NINA TURNER: Yeah. I mean, former President Donald J. Trump can adapt at times, and sometimes we don’t know what his convictions really, really are, which is unfortunate. I will say, yeah, this — women’s reproductive health is very important, even in my home state of Ohio, which is ruby red at this time, where the Republicans control all the constitutional offices. They have super supermajority in the Legislature at this time. An issue was put on the ballot a couple of years ago, and the voters really overturned the overreach of the Republican Party in my state, although it is ruby red. So, I know that abortion issues or reproductive health issues will be on ballots across this country. It is a very important issue, not just for women, but for all of us to take stock.

I want to put a “however” here. It is not the only issue. And in listening to the former first lady, although I do agree with her fact patterns here, what I don’t agree with is chastising voters. I don’t agree with telling men that if you don’t vote a certain way, then you really don’t love your mother, your daughter, your auntie, your significant other. I know conservative men, you know, and I have — my brother is conservative, as well. And I know for a fact that he loves me and his sisters and his wife and his daughter. So, Democrats go too far in that. And when you chastise people in that way, when you try to bully them in that way, I think you turn people off. I mean, another way to say that — she could have said those things, but put it a different way and be more compassionate about it. None of us can — I mean, yes, I have people that I would like for folks to vote for. I mean, certainly, when I was on the ballot, I wanted everybody to vote for me. But it is not my position to chastise them if they want to go another way. It’s to try to win them over. And when you talk to grown people in the way that President Obama did when he was chastising and criticizing Black men, when you talk to men in the way that first lady Michelle Obama did, I think it gains you — it doesn’t gain you anything. It can turn a lot of people off.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Nina Turner, if you could talk about — you just mentioned that Ohio is now ruby red, whereas previously it was a swing state. Could you explain what happened? How did that shift occur? And do you see that possibly happening in other states?

NINA TURNER: I think, over time, the Democratic Party lost its way in terms of just talking to working-class voters. And I mean from all identities, because sometimes when we say “working class,” people assume we’re just talking about white men. I’m talking about working-class people from all walks of life. And my state, you know, CAFTA, NAFTA, this happened over time. It didn’t just happen in one fell swoop. It happened over decade after decade after decade. But those trade deals definitely decimated Midwestern states like mine and really hurt a lot of workers.

And then working-class people from all backgrounds do not necessarily see themselves. They feel like elitism has taken over for both parties, but especially in the Democratic Party. And so, when you don’t see yourself in a party, you decide that you want to go another way.

And then, more recently — when I say “recently,” certainly over the almost four years — as people were suffering the effects of COVID, trying to — we were all trying to break out of it, inflation very high, the cost of groceries high, the cost of gas high, all of those material condition elements. The Democratic Party denied that, and they trotted out Bidenomics, and they turned their backs on people and made it seem as though the pain points that the big mamas and big papas were feeling were not necessarily real. You cannot do that.

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned President Obama referring to men, and I wanted to play that clip, when he made the surprise visit to Kamala Harris’s campaign field office in Pittsburgh. Let’s turn to a part of what he said.

BARACK OBAMA: You’re thinking about sitting out, or even supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is, putting women down? That’s not acceptable.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that’s former President Obama speaking in Pittsburgh. So, if you could respond to what he said? He’s speaking to Black men. He says, you know, “How can you consider voting for a man who has a history of denigrating you?” And the fact that a number of recent polls, which presumably is why Obama made this address specifically to Black men, because a number of polls suggest now that even though the majority are still Democrat, there’s been a steady shift towards voting Republican among Black men.

NINA TURNER: Yes, Nermeen. And I wrote a whole op-ed about this, too, in Newsweek, as well. And I encourage your viewers to check this out.

You know, when I heard the president lecture Black men in that way, it really made my blood boil. Black men are not children, so they don’t need to be lectured to. And Black men and Black women, in general, are really like the only voting bloc in this country that I believe that people like President Obama and others believe that they can brow beat to vote a certain way. Black men did not deserve that, and that is why I came out, and I will continue to come out and support and to lift them. They are the second-highest voting bloc for Democrats. And Black men are the most progressive male voting bloc in the United States of America. In 2016, Black men gave their vote, voted for Secretary Clinton by a clip of 81%. White men voted for her at a clip of 32%. So, although I don’t believe that any voter should be lectured to, why are you bringing that heat to Black men, when, empirically, they have shown time and time again that they are the most — they are more willing, as a male voting bloc, to give a woman an opportunity to be president of the United States of America. President Obama would never talk to white men like that or Asian men or any other male group, but he felt like he could talk to Black men like that. And that is wrong.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, if I could go back, relate this to a comment that you just made earlier about the extent to which the Democratic Party has alienated people, potential voters, through elitism of various kinds. So, if you could give examples of that and how you see the Democrats being more egregious than the Republicans in this kind of elitism?

NINA TURNER: Not necessarily more egregious. I think the Republican Party has mastered faux populism. In other words, President Donald J. Trump masked his elitism with “You see how those people treat you?” You know, he connects in a different way. Democrats don’t even try to connect. And I mean national Democrats. Let me not generalize, because that would not be fair to some of my hometown Democrats. But that lecture that President Obama gave is a form of elitism. The way that first lady Obama spoke to men, which probably was targeted towards Black men in particular, is a form of elitism. Calling Black women the backbone of the Democratic Party at the expense of Black men is another example of how the Democratic Party, over time, has attempted, either deliberately or not, or either on purpose or by accident, to alienate Black men. Black men then — if Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party, then Black men are the backbone of the Democratic Party, because they don’t vote much differently.

But this other point that I want to make: Why are we bringing this heat to Black men or to Black people? You talked about a shift. Well, shifts happen all the time. I thought we — I thought we lived in a democracy. I mean, I know it’s a representative — it’s a republic, a representative democracy. But don’t Black men, like any other group, have a right to make a choice? The way that the Democratic Party is coming at Black men is that you don’t have a choice. And if you’re thinking another way, fix your stinking thinking. You’re thinking wrong. And that, in and of itself, is very problematic.

I want to share some stats with you and Amy. I mean, the Democrats — so, since 1960, so, President Obama in 2012 got 85%. He had 85 — plus 85 point of Black men. Secretary Clinton was plus 71 points in 2016. President Obama, or, excuse me, President Biden, 69 points. And President — or, Vice President Harris is at 54 points. So we can see a steady decline, even though she is still going to get the lion’s share of the Black male vote. Now, something interesting that people don’t bring up, let’s look at Black women. The margin for President Obama in 2012, it was plus 93 points. Secretary Clinton in 2016, plus 93 points. President Biden in 2020, plus 85 points. Vice President Harris, plus 71 points for Black women.

So, I don’t see people bringing that same heat to Black women as they’re bringing to Black men. Again, people have a right. I don’t want the heat to be put on anybody. As electeds, it’s our job to try to convince voters to vote for us, not to bully them, not to brow beat them, not to say that you’re stupid or dumb or you don’t love women and/or men or people in general, if you vote a certain way. That, in and of itself, is an example of elitism, and it really turns people off. And I’ve heard that countless time. I mean, I can’t even tell you both how many states I’ve been in in the last four months where people come up to me saying that they don’t see themselves, and they don’t feel it, and really being very tired and disillusioned with this whole election cycle in 2024. It has been exhausting.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Why is that specifically about 2024? Do you see it more now than in previous?

NINA TURNER: I do. You know what? One of my dear friends told me her 10-year-old grandson said to her, you know, “Grandma, when is this going to be over? I’m tired.” Now, the 10-year-old can’t even vote. Now, he’s tired because he’s seeing all these commercials. And, of course, you know, with Senator Sherrod Brown, and, you know, that is a Senate race to watch. Just really tired. I think it is the toxic nature of this particular election cycle that is more weighty than the previous election cycles, and people are just starting to feel it, and they are over it. And now, as you both know, presidential elections start really as soon as the person is elected. We’re already predicting what’s going to happen in the next four years. So, the 24-hour news cycle probably has a lot to do with it. The fact that people are economically depressed has a lot to do with it. We’re dealing with war right now in the Middle East. That was not the case four years ago. So, it’s a confluence of factors.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And so, can I ask you about that war? I mean, to what extent do you think that war is impacting potential voters in the Democratic Party, and the Harris campaign’s line on that?

NINA TURNER: Extraordinarily so. I believe that if Vice President Harris were to come out and say that “I will support an arms embargo. I will follow the Leahy Law. I will follow the Foreign Assistance Act” — I’m talking about our laws — and international laws, that that would generate and excite a large base point for the Democratic Party. We know that the “uncommitted” movement, you had 100,000 in Michigan. You had about 50,000 in Wisconsin. That is a large voting bloc. And when we’re talking about margins, it would do well.

And then you got former President Bill Clinton, just the remarks that he made in Michigan, no doubt, about the Arab and Muslim American community, that if they’re frustrated, you know, basically they need to get over their frustration. You don’t do that to voters when you’ve had over 40,000 people killed and millions living in famine.

And so, yes, the Democratic voting bloc has been very clear in poll after poll that they want to see the war over, and they want to see an embargo on weapons to Israel. But you have the elites in the party not answering to the will of their own voters. And then, just across the board, be you Democrat or Republican or Libertarian or Green Party or no party at all, a greater number of the American people are both saying they want this war to be over. You don’t have either party listening.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to get back to Israel’s attack on Gaza, armed by the United States, but do it through a circuitous route. Donald Trump, we all know what happened at the Madison Square rally, when one of his speakers, this so-called comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, took the stage.

TONY HINCHCLIFFE: There’s a lot going on. Like, I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, this “floating island of garbage, … I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” this heinous statement. So, then President Biden is asked to respond to that during a Voto Latino get-out-the-vote call online.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I don’t know the Puerto Rican that — that I know, or Puerto Rico where I’m — in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done.

AMY GOODMAN: So, then Trump and his backers seized on Biden’s remarks, comparing them to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 comment calling Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables.” On social media, President Biden wrote, quote, “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say,” he said. And he said when he said Trump supporters, he was — it came down to an apostrophe. He meant only one of the supporters. He was talking about those speakers, and particularly that speaker, Hinchcliffe, at the Republican convention. I thought what was very interesting is then Kamala Harris having to weigh in. Now, at this point, you’ve got in Green Bay, President Trump puts on a yellow fluorescent vest. He’s driving a garbage truck that says Trump on it, saying, “They’re calling us garbage,” so Kamala Harris responds to what President Biden said.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.

AMY GOODMAN: So, she is trying to make a distinction. First she says, “Let’s be clear: Biden did correct the record.” But then she says, “I want to be clear,” and she put some sunlight between her and President Biden. I found that very interesting. I mean, she clearly had to do this. But she is not so willing to put that kind of sunlight between her and President Biden when it comes to Gaza, something that she is dealing with at every campaign stop. She is often interrupted. Even when this amazing number of 70,000 people came out in Washington, D.C., you had several hundred in the rally that started to demand an arms embargo. And, of course, a number of them were taken out. But she has had to stop her rallies and smaller rallies to respond. At the Democratic convention, she refused to allow a Palestinian American to speak.

NINA TURNER: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain? I mean, you’re inside, outside. You’re often — you were a state senator. You were a top person for Bernie Sanders. What is going on here? She can make the distinction between her and the president, her president — she’s vice president — when it comes to this heinous comment about garbage, but she won’t make it on Gaza.

NINA TURNER: Amy, it takes a different type of courage. The vice president did the right thing to say that, “Hey, I’m not rolling with President Biden on his comment. It was not a gaffe. He meant exactly what he said.” Unfortunately, politicians have taken to labeling negatively other’s voters. The president was out of line, and the vice president did the right thing. She did it quickly. And you only have a few days before November the 5th, so she had to do that.

Now, separating herself from this president on what’s happening in Gaza takes another level of courage. In other words, she didn’t lose anything by saying, “I disagree with President Biden in calling Trump supporters garbage writ large.” That was the right thing to do. Also the right thing to do is to call for an embargo and to say that as the — “If I become the next president of the United States of America, I will follow our laws, and I will follow international law.” She could lose something from that. And so, that — she doesn’t have the courage at this point to do that, and she hasn’t done that.

So, instead of campaigning across the country with Liz Cheney and saying that you’re honored to have the endorsement of former Vice President Cheney, Dick Cheney —

AMY GOODMAN: Liz Cheney’s father.

NINA TURNER: Liz Cheney’s father — what the vice president could do to shore up her base and excite the base — and I’m not only just talking about Arab Americans and Muslims, although they are uniquely impacted by what is happening in Gaza, but what happens over there happens over here, that we’re all impacted by it at some point. And when you have groups from different walks of life — and let me shout out Jewish Voices for Peace and other groups that are out there saying, “Don’t do this. Call for an embargo.” Not only are 40,000 people have been killed. People are living in famine right now, disease right now, dirty water right now. Workers who are coming in there to try to save lives are being bombed and killed. And the United States of America, the blood is on our hands. And so, it takes a different level of courage, of which the vice president, unfortunately, has not been able to curry. So you campaign with warmongers, but you won’t call for an embargo. That is a problem.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, if you could explain, different level of courage? You said earlier she has something to lose. What would she lose, were she to call for just an arms embargo?

NINA TURNER: I mean, we know that AIPAC, I mean, they spent a hundred — they raised $100 million. They took out two very progressive African American congressmembers, just because they stood up — and I’m talking about Congresswoman Cori Bush in particular; let me bold and underscore her name and put an exclamation point — calling for a ceasefire very early on in this process, and they set out to target her. They also took out Congressman Bowman from New York, as well, targeting him, and they were very successful.

So, as a politician and somebody who understands the nature of this — and I understand this personally, because way before there was an October 7th, there was a Nina Turner running for Congress in the great state of Ohio in a special election in 2021 and then the regular election cycle in 2022, and they came at me with everything that they had. My race was the canary in the coal mine, and they perfected going after progressive candidates through my race.

So, that is what I mean, having to lose that, having to answer to that, having the fear that you’re going to lose donors, and placing the needs of donors above the needs of humanity. And that is a problem that my party is going to have to deal with. Now, Republicans don’t get a free pass here. But what the crux of this issue that I want our viewers to understand is that there is no — when we talk about no daylight between Vice President Harris and President Biden on this issue, there is no daylight between Democrats and Republicans, I mean, the policymakers. There’s no daylight between the Biden-Harris administration and President Trump on the issue of Gaza and the dehumanization of Palestinian people and not really caring about their lives and their future and their freedom. There’s no daylight. That pains me greatly.

And there are many people that care about this issue. And the African American community is one of the greatest allies when it comes to pain points for people, because we understand the history and the degradation and the dehumanization and the murder of our people over generations, chattel slavery in this country. And it makes us uniquely positioned to care about that. And when you poll African Americans, we poll very high in caring about what is happening over in Gaza.

See, it takes a different level of courage, and the vice president, to this point — now, something might change tomorrow. But as of Halloween — right? — today is October [31st] — she has not mustered that courage. And that is going to be a problem.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I mean, there’s also — you’re right about that, and that’s something that both Democratic and Republican candidates are, you know, subject to, which is to say the necessity to have vast quantities of money to run for any position in this country. And I just want to quote a figure. The nonprofit Open Secrets has estimated already that in 2024, like in every successive election in the U.S., spending exceeds the previous election. So, now this Open Secrets estimates that presidential and congressional races this year, the cost is expected to top $15.9 billion.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, a billion of that is Kamala Harris, which she has raised, not to mention what Trump has raised, which also takes us to the most expensive Senate race in this country, and it’s in your state of Ohio. And I want to just play a clip. The Senate Leadership Fund is a super PAC affiliated with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. It has flooded Ohio with ads against the incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, like this one.

NARRATOR: But brown voted multiple times to allow transgender biological males to participate in girls’ sports.

AMY GOODMAN: So, this brings up a few things. One is, I’m wondering if you can comment on the Bernie Moreno versus Senator Sherrod Brown race. I think they’re going to spend $400 million on this race. This is just unprecedented. And that little clip attacking Sherrod Brown around the issue of trans rights, the amount of money, tens of millions of dollars that the Republicans have put into anti-trans ads, particularly playing during sports events, like major football games now and the World Series.

NINA TURNER: They’re stoking fear. They’re othering our trans sisters and brothers, family and friends. They’re othering the trans community in a way that is vile. And they know exactly what they’re doing. They’re stoking fear, and they’re othering. And they’re trying to get into the psyche of the American people to make them see the trans community as somehow the enemy. That is the wrong way to go about this. It is abhorrent, what they are doing with those commercials.

When it comes to that particular race, I mean, it is going to be a squeaker, as well. The amount of money that you and Nermeen laid out, both in the Ohio race and also nationally, is obscene. We need campaign finance reform in this country. We need to overturn Citizens United. Money has been given voice, and we see what happens.

AMY GOODMAN: And the Democrats are hardly going to raise this campaign finance reform, because they have to raise the money to beat the Republicans.

NINA TURNER: Oh, they’re part of it. That’s exactly it. So, when it comes to the duopoly, when you talk about no daylight, there is no daylight between both parties when it comes to taking this amount of money. If we could get this amount of money out of politics, we would free up many elected officials to be able to do more of the right thing, and it would give the opportunity for more working-class people to be able to run, as well, because that is a hurdle to entry, because now the most connected and the most well financed and the people who answer to their owner donors — and that’s exactly what they are — they get the greater —

AMY GOODMAN: Owner donors.

NINA TURNER: Owner donors. They get a greater opportunity to be able to win. I mean, Amy and Nermeen, I feel like, you know, NASCAR. And I’m not a NASCAR — you know, I don’t — I’m not the best agent for NASCAR. But, however, I think the drivers wear these suits, and it has all their sponsors on it. I want to see politicians forced to, on their suits, on their nice, little
tailored suits, to wear patches that let the American people know exactly who owns them, because that is exactly what they are. Owner donors run the duopoly.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to end it there, but it’s a conversation that will continue. Nina Turner, former Ohio state senator, senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School, We will link to her new piece for Newsweek headlined “Calling Trump a Nazi Is Giving Our Own History a Pass. The Racism of MAGA Is American.” Nina Turner is also founder of We Are Somebody. To see Part 1 of our discussion, go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.