(hip-hop music) - Hendrell, you brought up our governor here in Tennessee, Governor Lee.

I wanna ask both of you all, what rate, from a scale of 1 to 10, would you give our governor on the job that he's done to represent all Tennesseans?

- This is the part where you see a drastic disagreement.

(Scott chuckling) - So, 1 to 10, what's that number?

- I'm gonna give him a 1.

- [Jerome] Okay.

- I'll be fair, and I'll give him a 1.

- Okay, and how about you?

- So, I'll give him an 11.

(Hendrell laughing) So we'll be -- - Okay, so we got 1 and 11.

(Scott laughing) I think Governor Lee has done great.

- Hello, and welcome.

I'm your host, Jerome Moore.

Today I'm joined by the Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman, Hendrell Remus, also, the Tennessee Republican Party Chairman, Scott Golden.

how y'all fellas doing?

- Doing great.

- Pretty good.

- Thank you.

- Thank y'all for being here, I'm excited about this conversation.

I told y'all before, if you wanna just go on ahead, squabble it out now, (Hendrell and Scott laughing) you can, November is on the line.

- We'll get into it, we got 90 days left, so we'll get into it.

- Let's jump straight into it.

There's been a lot of confusion, one would say blurred lines between Democrats and Republicans.

So I wanna give you all a chance to explain like what it means to be a Democrat and what it means to be a Republican.

And I'll start with you first, Hendrell.

- Well, obviously, thank you for having us again.

You know, being a Democrat is about putting people first, you know, it's about making sure that we have a level playing field where everybody gets a fair and equal opportunity to achieve a life of prosperity and progress, where we are not latching ourselves on to just a top-down approach, but we're building this nation up from the bottom-up, and we're protecting folks in the middle class, making sure that they have an opportunity, especially when they are burdening the financial burden of keeping our country afloat.

It's about making sure that we're using common sense's approach to how we navigate the political spectrum.

It's about making sure that we're not trying to apply our own personal ideals and beliefs onto folks, especially when they're centered around a religious aspect.

It's about making sure that people have the right to really, really harness and live out their personal freedoms: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The democratic party has worked to try to create that, and then that's what we believe in, everybody should have the opportunity to be able to thrive in this country.

- How about you, Scott?

- Well, that was a lot.

That sounded good.

We agree with a lot of that, certainly personal freedom.

I think for the Republican side, what we see that limits freedom is government overreach.

And when the government expands, then individual Liberty contracts.

And that's really what the Republican party has focused in, it's been the case for the founding of our country, is to restrain.

One of the reasons why we're no longer a part of Great Britain is because we rebelled against the king, and a top-down approach from government.

And so that has been the focus of the Republican Party, is to increase individual liberty, and getting government off the backs of the individual.

So, those are the rights that we're fighting for.

And so that's, I mean, you know, a lot of what you said is exactly right, the middle class and working class people.

But they cannot achieve the American dream when there's a heavy hand of government that's upon 'em.

- So, a question for both of you on how this plays into your answer.

We all know what happened January 6th, the insurrection, was that a response to government overreach, was that a response of people living out their freedoms and their rights?

How would we describe that?

And I'll start with you, Scott.

- Well, you know, I condemn what happened on January 6th, the day that it happened.

I mean, this was, you know, the actions of a few individuals who all have been prosecuted, but I don't think that that, you know, the people that walked into the capital that day don't represent the vast majority of who Republicans are.

I mean, you know, January 6th was terrible, it was condemned from every person in our party, and said this is not the way that we react, we get ourselves back together, we dust off, we get back to the ballot box, and we hope that in the next 90 days, that a lot of being able to change the direction of where we've gone as a country over the last couple years will be remedied at the polls.

And as Americans, that's what we should all be striving for.

- Well, you know, we talk about government overreach.

I mean, we've got folks serving in the state legislature right now who was there on January the 6th, carrying out a treasonous act against this nation.

Is it government overreach?

I guess when you have the President of the United States, encouraging people to overthrow a fair election, where more people went to the polls and voted than ever before in the history of this country, you have to ask, is that government overreach from the highest pool pit in government?

But I want to tag back just a little bit, because we talked about that government overreach piece.

I mean, we live in a state where government overreach is at an all-time high, under a Republican controlled legislature, Republican controlled governor, where they've tried to control every aspect of everyone's lives, who you can marry, what you can teach in schools, who can have healthcare and who can't have healthcare.

You know, it's become insane, the level of how entrenched these folks in this Republican legislature have become in trying to control every aspect of everyone's life.

I'm happy today, to be able to say that we're the party in Tennessee that's actually making sure that people can express and really grapple and hold on to their personal freedoms.

What happened on January the 6th was a culmination of an out of control Republican agenda and ideology that really truly started at the top and worked its way down in a very manipulative way, in corroding what could essentially have been, you know, the party of all this freedom, and choice, and rights.

But when that becomes a violent assault on our nation, and our democracy?

- So, Scott.

- [Scott] Well, that's no different -- - Scott, I wanna give you a chance to rebuttal that, and kind of break away from what Hendrell is saying about Republicans are the ones that are trying to be entrenched and controlling Americans' everyday freedoms and rights.

- Washington just passed a bill this week that President Biden signed today that had 87,000 new IRS agents.

Now tell me that's not a top-down government overreach.

This is scary government stuff.

- Hendrell, you brought up our current governor here in Tennessee, Governor Lee.

I wanna ask both of you all, what rate, from a scale of 1 to 10, would you give our governor, Lee, at this current moment on the job that he's done to represent all Tennesseans.

- Well, this is the part where you see a drastic disagreement.

(Scott chuckling) I think he's done -- - So, 1 to 10, what's that number?

- I'm gonna give him a 1.

- [Jerome] Okay.

- I'll be fair, and I'll give him a 1.

- Okay, and how about you?

- So, I'll give him an 11.

(Hendrell laughing) So we'll be -- - Okay, so we got 1 and 11.

(Scott laughing) I think Governor Lee has done great.

- Why the 11?

- So, I think Governor Lee campaigned, and you know, as a small business person, obviously you see is what he built in a Nashville community in middle Tennessee, with a great company.

He came in with a message of, you know, he wanted to improve education.

Which we've seen improvement in education over the last four years.

You've seen, I mean, teacher pay raises every year, even during COVID.

Now I mean, again, a lot of what the governor has had to grapple with has never happened in the history of our, well, it has happened, but you know, a hundred years ago with the pandemic, we literally shut government down.

And so Tennessee is the fastest approving economy coming out of COVID, would not have happened without his leadership in my opinion.

- And why the 1?

- Well, I mean, (chuckles) look at the condition of our state.

I mean, on almost every major issue, this governor has failed.

On almost every major issue.

- Paint that picture for us.

- We talk about, you know, here's a governor, and Scott mentioned him being a person from a small business background, a business background, we have a rainy day fund in this state with billions of dollars in it, had this been his job in the private sector, he'd be getting a cushiony bonus for all of the revenue that he's sitting on.

But when you're looking out for the lives of ordinary people, you don't hold government money in a rainy day fund, you make sure that people can really have a better life.

You make sure that we're not just scratching the surface on funding, education, and coming up with teacher pay raises that are way long overdue and also don't go far enough.

I mean, all over the country, we have seen the President's policies working to drive the greatest economic engine that we've seen ever, under any presidential administration, 9 million jobs.

So to say that that's the work of just a lone governor, Bill Lee, I mean, we've seen that he hasn't been a leader.

- You know, there are more people, we have more jobs available in this state than we have people to fill 'em, currently.

We are the most moved to state in the country.

I mean, U-Hauls are coming from California, Illinois, and New York, straight into middle Tennessee.

A thousand people a week are moving to middle Tennessee, that doesn't happen without a very good governor and a very good legislature.

So I mean, our policies are working.

- I want to pivot into these new congressional maps.

Right?

Which is gonna drastically shift things, voting power, especially for a city like Nashville, who's been historically a blue city.

What are your thoughts, Scott, on the congressional maps, the redistricting of the new congressional maps?

- Yeah.

- And how that affects voting, and who it affects.

- Well, I mean, everybody's gonna still have the right to vote, the question now becomes, you know, who's got the better chance of winning the district, and the constitution gives the legislature the ability to create the maps, and our legislature did what New York did, what Massachusetts did, so this new district was created, you know, it split Nashville up into thirds.

Now I have been sort of the minority of this, and having worked in two congressional offices in my former life, I can say the fact that Nashville's gonna have three members of Congress up there is really gonna be a benefit to the city.

- Well, the problem becomes, are you gonna be representing Davidson County, or are you gonna be despising the folks who live in this county?

We've already seen the Republican nominee in District 5 talk about how this is a culture war.

This is not a culture war, playing with people's lives is not a culture war.

Republicans have driven us to the brink of all of this division and hatred amongst one another under the guise of culture war.

We had a solid representative representing this county in its entirety.

We know what racially gerrymandered maps look like, we know what politically gerrymandered maps look like, and this city cracking that has been a national Republican agenda in major cities all over the state, it's not something that's new to Nashville, and we're gonna continue to challenge it until the Supreme Court and courts say that it's dead on arrival.

- And so, Scott, you mentioned this third, that, you know, Davidson County is now being broken up into.

- Right.

- Nashville is now, more than ever, a multicultural, multiethnic city, very diverse city, and the majority of these voters that are gonna be affected by these new congressional maps are black and brown folks.

- Yeah -- - And they're black and brown folks, how do you feel about their voices and their representation that they may or may not have with these new congressional maps?

And then, Hendrell, I'll go with you.

- I think that's a pretty dim view if people are only voting for their skin color, right?

Herschel Walker in Georgia, Tim Scott in South Carolina, these are great, patriotic Americans that are running, and to say that, well, I'm only gonna vote for somebody because of their skin color, I think just, that's not the way a Republican Party mindset works.

So, a Republican party mindset is, we want everybody, we think our policies are great for America.

We want less government.

We want less taxes.

We want people to be able to succeed, have that, as you talked about, that opportunity, is what we're for.

And so to say that, well, I'm only gonna do this because, you know, that, I think that that's a fairly closed mind.

- So you do believe that this third, the split will in fact help these minority voters with this new congressional map shifting?

- You know, yeah, I think that at the end of the day, look, I mean, Hendrell and I come in here, and we talk about different policy differences, right?

And they're gonna be good policy debates.

But I think as far as just the good-hearted nature of the people that we're sending up there, they want to do what's good for everybody.

- Hendrell, what are your thoughts?

- I mean, I disagree with the last statement.

I don't think that they want to do good for everybody.

I mean, Andy Ogles himself has said this is a culture war.

Here's the point that Republicans often miss, this isn't about just voting for folks based on skin color, this is about fair representation.

I mean, where you got a city like Memphis, where the Congressman is white and the city is majority black.

You have a place like Davidson County, where Jim Cooper was white, and there were tens of thousands of black voters helping to elect him.

It's about making sure that black and brown people have a voice and a say in who represents them, not just based on the color of their skin, but based on the policies and the ideas that they believe in.

- And so I have to ask this, because we can all agree, I think, that like race has played, and does play a whole lot, a whole huge factor in this country, from its existence.

Right?

Being in politics, does United States have racist politics?

I'll start with you, Scott.

- I don't know what that means.

(sighs) I mean, you know, you're gonna say different issues and whatever, I would say -- - Policies that have been -- - It's a heart problem for people of faith.

It comes down to a heart problem, right?

If they are racist, that means that they are not going by the Bible that I pray to, you know, every day and on Sunday, right?

- [Jerome] Okay.

- And so hopefully the people of faith would take a different approach.

- We have a system that is systemically racist, built on systemic racism.

I mean, a system that was designed to keep black and brown people down, pull black and brown people down.

And for the most part, that system was perpetrated by politics, by and through politics, however you wanna put it.

Scott had mentioned something about faith and finding what's in your heart, and those good things.

We know on Sunday morning is the most segregated place to be in this country.

- Church.

- Is on a pew in your respected church, whether that's a black Baptist church or a white Lutheran church.

I mean, we've got some major issues racially that we haven't really dealt with in this country.

I mean, we've done a great job at putting a mask on it.

I mean, I sit here as the first black person to ever have this job as the Tennessee Democratic Party Chair.

(chuckles) Democratic Party Chair.

So that tells you right there, that we've got a whole lot of work to do on both sides of the aisle, especially when it comes to racial issues.

- Probably good news for Scott, probably bad news for you, Hendrell, (Hendrell chuckling) that the Republicans have a super majority here in Tennessee.

How does that affect how Democrats, and Democrat voters, participate in politics?

- People call this a red state.

I've heard a lot of folks in the activist community call it a non-voting state, I tend to agree with them more.

We're 47th in the nation of voter participation, I mean, we're a non-voting state.

The more people that participate, the better chances will increase for Democrats.

The more we get people ingrained and engaged in the process, the better the chances will be for Democrats.

And you know, it hadn't always been this way.

From reconstruction up until 2010, about 2010, Democrats had control of the state.

But these last 10 years or so, this last decade under Republican control has felt like a lifetime of hell because the policies have not been aligned with where the people are.

- I was just gonna say, the last decade's been fantastic by the way.

(laughs) - Right, right.

- But there was a lot of work for the Republicans to get to that stage.

- Yeah, but how do you all take the power that you have to make Tennessee a better Tennessee?

- I mean, look, I think when you look at the metrics across the board, Tennessee is really doing well.

We're doing much better than any state in the southeast.

I mean, we just landed Ford, who's building their electric F-150s in our neck of the woods, out in west Tennessee, right?

So, I mean, you don't get that unless people are looking at what you're doing right in Tennessee.

That comes from education, that comes from workforce development.

I mean, there's always places that we're gonna improve.

I mean, there's gonna be squabbles in the legislature, and there's gonna be issues to debate, but I mean, but you can tell with what we've got.

I mean, you know, in the last decade, we've added Volkswagen, now Ford, and I mean, we've become an automotive hub, and all the things that go into that.

I mean, clearly we're moving in the right direction, and I think the voters have rewarded what has been accomplished, and I think they will again in November.

- Speaking of November, what is at stake for Tennesseeans this coming November for 2022?

- Well, obviously, the most high profile's gonna be the governor's race.

That's the only statewide election, it's the first one in several years that has just been won.

We've had the senators the last couple years, so the governor will be high profile of course.

All 99 members of the state house are up, and then 17, 16 or 17 of the state Senate is up this time around.

And then of course, you know, all the members of Congress.

So, everybody's working hard.

- For the folks who live in this state, everything's at stake.

It's all on the line, how our educational system is gonna be funded, whether or not women are gonna have the choice to decide what happens with their own healthcare, whether or not the personal freedoms that citizens depend on in this state are assaulted by this Republican super majority, whether or not we move the needle on where we are with hatred and division in this state, whether or not trans kids are gonna have to go to school fearful of what might happen to them because of the dangerous precedent that has been set by this Republican super majority, whether or not librarians are gonna have to worry about being arrested and charged by district attorneys who have set out on a political agenda, just because of what they're teaching kids in school, whether or not our children are gonna be able to go into the future more diverse, and more informed, and more knowledgeable than our generation was.

So, everything's on the line and at stake in this next election.

- Hendrell, how has Trump, former President Trump, changed politics, and how we see politics today, and the climate?

(Hendrell sighs) - How hasn't he changed it?

(Scott laughing) - I agree with that.

It's true.

- How hasn't he changed it?

- For better or for worse.

- It's like going into a closet and dropping a grenade in there on yourself.

He has really exasperated the darkest parts of politics.

He has made truth something that people don't gravitate to.

He has made conspiracy theorists the lay of the land when it comes to ideology.

He has caused us to doubt each other.

He has created more chaos with his manipulative conman ways than probably anybody who's ever ascended to the highest level of government.

But the most dangerous thing is that he has put our democracy in a very fragile state, where at any moment, we don't know which Republican Senator or Congressman, or which Republican State House member or Governor, is going to try to do something crazy enough to undermine the democracy in this nation, and to really set us back.

- Has he done anything good from your perspective?

- The only thing that he's done good, in my opinion, is made people realize how important their power is as voters, and as citizens of this democracy and of this nation.

- Scott, what are your thoughts on politics -- - In the Trump era?

- [Jerome] In the Trump era.

For better or for worse.

- You know, I was marveling at it the other day, that he still, he's been out of office now for 19 months, 19 months, and he still leads the newscast on ABC every day.

I said, that is pretty transformative, that six years, that it has done nothing but media dominated, has been the headlines.

I don't know, he could retire on the amount of money he could make living inside Democrats' heads.

- So, is Trump good or bad for the Republicans?

- Well, I mean, look, I think that he has, look, everybody, I mean, think about how great it was by the way, I really enjoyed paying a $1.71 in gas the day that he left, now when it went back up to $3.49, now I'm thankful that we're under $5 that Joe Biden has given us.

But when I'm buying milk and eggs at the store that has quadrupled since Joe Biden has taken office, that wasn't the case with Donald Trump.

And he had to fight a pandemic, which, you know, for better or for worse, we didn't know what it meant.

- So, Scott, is he good or bad for Republican?

- Well, I think everybody appreciates what his policies were, there's no question.

- All right.

So, yes or no?

Yes or no?

- It's not that simple though.

But I mean, it's because one thing that I think he has done from our side is sort of highlighted how partisan the media is.

And that's really, you wanna talk about, there has been no group sink lower in the approval ratings in the last four years than the media, the mainstream media.

And, you know, you talk about that's undermining them, when you can't trust the information that's being presented to you, that gets a little scary in terms of our democracy.

- Well, what we just experienced was a masterclass in the MAGA era of Republican politics.

I mean, yes, he's on the news cycle every day, but it's for the most chaotic things.

He's been terrible for the country.

He was terrible for the world.

- So, to close us out, I wanna give each you all the space and time to deliver a message to the Tennesseeans here, Republicans, Democrats, in between, on why it' important to vote, and the power that they have with their vote here in Tennessee.

Scott, I'll let you go first.

- Listen, I'll say this, and this has been great, Jerome, thank you very much, appreciate it.

- No, y'all have been great.

- You guys, I mean this is what we get paid to do, right?

Our two sides, we're gonna argue, we're gonna be passionate about our causes, but I really like Hendrell, we worked together on the both conventions, trying to get Tennessee to be a convention city, and so we both made some effort in that, and so there were some great things.

But he's gonna believe what he's gonna believe, I'm gonna believe what I'm gonna believe.

But ultimately, look, that decision is in the power of everybody that gets out to vote.

I mean, there were more people that voted in Tennessee in 2020 than ever before in the history of our state.

So that was great to see.

I mean, I spend days, and I know I can probably speak for you, that that's our job, is to get people out to vote.

We call people, we knock on their door, we send them mail, please get out to vote.

And when you think about what has been sacrificed for that right to vote, and to know that there's a certain percentage of people that just don't want to take advantage of it, it's sad.

But I mean, we're gonna continue to keep doing it, I hope that everybody comes out.

I appreciate good dissent.

I mean, iron sharpens iron, and so having these good discussions about the direction of our state is fantastic, but ultimately, it's settled into ballot box, and it's done so without violence, so.

- Hendrell, your message to Tennesseeans, particularly maybe Democrats, or just all Tennesseeans on why it's important to vote, and get out there and use that power that they have.

- Absolutely.

The power that one's vote has will control our destiny.

It's just that simple.

We're coming off a August election where we saw record low turnout from both Democrats and Republicans across this state.

When we don't harness that power to vote, when we don't exercise that right, not only do we disregard the sacrifices that so many people have made, even with their own lives, for people to have that right, but what we do is we set in place this prolonged experience of people having to just settle for whoever is elected by a small fraction of folks who live in their state, or the folks who live in their community.

And when we don't vote, when we don't express that voice, then I think we eliminate our opinion on anything that's happening in our community.

If you're not going to get involved and engaged in the process, then you, by default, has helped to create a problem.

If we're going to change the direction in this state, in this nation, and ultimately help to structure what the next generation of this world will look like, then folks have got to get out and vote.

- But look, I wanna appreciate both of you all for sitting down with me, and having this civil and brave conversation to discuss what's happening on a Republican, Democrat, but just also what's happening in our communities in this state.

(hip-hop beat) So, thank you all, good luck to both parties in November, and thank you all for watching.

(gentle music)