Rep. Jackie Speier: The GOP Has Elements of a Cult

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks Bianna. Congresswoman Jackie Speier. Thank you so much for joining us.

JACKIE SPEIER, U.S. HOUSE DEMOCRAT: I’m delighted to be with you.

MARTIN: I sort of want to start with your recent news, and then of course, I want to talk more broadly about your remarkable life and career. But, you’ve made the decision not to run for reelection. Why?

SPEIER: Not an easy decision, actually, a very hard decision. And as I said when I announced, I’m coming home to be more than a weekend wife, a weekend mom and a weekend friend. I’ve been in public life now 39 years and I’m 71 years old and while that is very young, it makes me realize that with the years I have left, isn’t it time to spend it with my family? Isn’t it time to be in the community again? And isn’t it time to have a little fun?

MARTIN: You live in a predominantly democratic area, so perhaps your seat is not, you know, in question to the degree that anything is, is a certainty these days. But are you worried about Democrats holding onto the house?

SPEIER: Well historically that has been the case where we have — where the party in power loses seats in the midterms. So that is a possibility. But we have a package of bills that will be signed into law that will transform the lives of virtually every American. And it’s going to be our job in the next 12 months to get that word out, to speak to the American people in terms that they understand, at the kitchen table. Talk about the fact that you can get that hearing aid, and it’s not going to cost you $5,000, that your insulin isn’t going to cost you a thousand dollars a month. It’s only going to be $35. That your kids are going to be able to go to pre-K and you’re not going to have to scrounge around to get the eight or $10,000 a year to put them in pre-K. And about 50% of the kids in this country are not in pre-K, so that’s three and four year olds. And then for childcare, oh my goodness. 1.7 million women have left the workforce since COVID for predominantly childcare associated reasons. It’s the lowest participation of women since 1988. So we want to make sure that we can get these women back into the workforce so that their families have the resources they need to be able to have a good quality of life.

MARTIN: You’ve just laid out and sort of all these reasons why you’d think that people in the public would be appreciative and optimistic about the future. And yet the president — President Biden’s approval ratings are in a very low state, certainly members of Congress in recent years as an institution, Congress has not been held in high regard, you know, by the public in recent years, that doesn’t seem to have sort of changed. I mean are Democrats just bad at this? Are they just bad telling people what they do?

SPEIER: We’re bad at telling people what our message is. We always have been. We talk in, in textbooks language, our Republican colleagues talk in bumper strip language. So, we’ve got to learn frankly from our Republican colleagues how to simplify and make our message clear and understandable to everybody. I mean, we have always been the party of the underdog and yet there are those who feel like we have abandoned them. And it’s really important for us to speak to them and have them know that we have their backs.

MARTIN: Well, why is that though? I mean, you know, as I think many people will remember if they choose to — the former president, Donald Trump, promised an infrastructure bill. He had four years to do it and he didn’t. For a period of that time, he had controlled one house Republicans, his party controlled one house of the Congress. They didn’t do it. You’ve done it. The Democrats have done it. And yet, only a handful of Republicans voted for the infrastructure bill and none of them voted for the second large spending package, the build back better plan, which you’re calling the second jobs plan — none of them voted for that. So, I mean, why is that?

SPEIER: It’s because consensus building and compromise has become a sin in the Republican house, for sure. Anything that is pro — anything that moves the country forward during this timeframe is seen as helping President Biden and they want to tear him down. We have, the Congress has lost its message and mission in terms of trying to elevate the people in the country. It’s all about winning elections now. And it’s got the potential of destroying us.

MARTIN: I wonder, why did that happen, do you think? I mean, obviously there are certain members of Congress who will just feel like they’re just fighting the good fight for what they believe in. And they think that that’s, you know, that they’re just doing the right thing. But the reality of it is that Republicans have people who believe in dangerous conspiracy theories.  I mean, you have members of Congress who believe that, you know, the election was stolen, despite all evidence, even a sort of a sham audit, which was funded by their political supporters who couldn’t find the thing that they say that they were looking for. And yet ,that they insist that this is the case. So what do you think happened there? Why do you think that is?

SPEIER: Yeah. When truth doesn’t matter anymore, that everyone can just embrace their particular ideology. I mean, there are 32 candidates running for Congress on the Republican ticket, this cycle that are QAnon supporters. I mean, that should make us all, you know, cringe. So I think what’s happened is social media has actually become the monster that, that we were afraid it was going to become. Now I represent a lot of social media companies in my district. I have Facebook and YouTube in my district. So they employ lots of people. They employ a family member. But I’m very concerned about how the algorithms that have been employed have allowed for misogyny, the idea that you can overthrow the government, these conspiracy theory theories continue to fester — and it feeds on itself.

MARTIN: So that would seem to suggest that these entities would be ripe for some sort of regulation. Is this a failure of the Congress and the leadership not to have done before now?

SPEIER: Absolutely. We are always late to the process, no matter what it is. What are we doing about cryptocurrency? What are we doing about regulating social media? We are always late to the process.

MARTIN: And do you think that’s a failure of yours since these companies are in your district, and presumably you have been well aware of their growth and impact over the years. Would you, would you say that this is in part of failure of yours?

SPEIER: Well, you know, we all, we also operate on a committee system. I don’t serve on the committee of jurisdiction. So I have introduced legislation. I have met with colleagues who serve on that committee, but I don’t have a voice on that committee. And since we are really focused on a committee system, that’s where the work gets done. Now, the bill I introduced on revenge porn that does in fact provide regulation, did get into the violence against women’s act VAWA, and it is on the Senate side now.

MARTIN: I’m just going to remind people, for people who are not aware of your remarkable story. You were just 28 years old when you were accompanying then Congressman Leo Ryan to Guyana to investigate reports of an abusive cult, we now know that had kind of established itself there. I mean, obviously one of the reasons he wanted to go was that family members of these cult members were deeply worried and were getting reports that they were being abused physically and sexually, that they were being starved, that they were basically held captive there and you went as part of a delegation. You were ambushed, you were shot five times and left for dead. The Congressman himself was killed. You should have died. And for people who they, this is called the Jonestown sort of mass suicide, but you say it’s actually, as it was a massacre. You said that you made a decision then and there that if you survived, what you would do. Do you mind helping us through that?

SPEIER: So I said the act of contrition, thought I was going to die. And then when I realized I had a chance to live, I promised that if I did survive, I would dedicate my life to public service and that I would never take another day for granted and that I would live every single day as fully as possible. So that’s what I’ve attempted to do. So, you know, it’s certainly has played a significant role in my life. But you know, 14 years later, my husband was killed in an automobile accident when I was pregnant with our second child. I can’t begin to tell you how painful that was and how I just didn’t want to live anymore. So, you know, there’ve been episode after episode and yet there’s always, there’s always a silver lining. You know, there’s always that sweet rainbow out there and you’ve just got to hang in there. And my book was really about that. Undaunted was really a book about that. It was a memoir, but it was also about how you can overcome virtually everything. And I really wrote it for young women because I want them to realize I had the same experiences. I mean, I was engaged to be married. And then, two years into the engagement, my fiance breaks it up. It was devastating. I you know, get married, we have our child, and then I have two miscarriages and then we adopt a baby and the birth mother takes the baby back. I mean, it was, it just kept happening, but the good things also kept happening.

MARTIN: Well, one of the things that you have been known for is just being extremely real and raw when you feel felt it was necessary. I mean, you are one of the very few women in public life ever to speak publicly and on the house floor about having an abortion, which you did when you were losing a much wanted child at 17 weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPEIER: And that procedure that you just talk about was a procedure that I endured. I lost a baby, but for you to stand on this floor and to suggest as you have that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN: Obviously, abortion rights, women’s reproductive rights have been very important to you throughout your term in office. We face a moment where — and recognizing of course, that there are very different opinions about this. But we also see states moving to enact extremely restrictive measures. I mean, Texas has already done so — it would make it extremely difficult for women to obtain abortions under most circumstances. What are your thoughts about that?

SPEIER: Well, I have lots of thoughts about it. What really gets lost in all of this is what happens with the impregnator? No one talks about the person responsible for impregnating the woman who is now seeking an abortion. And it’s part of me that thinks that if a woman has to carry a fetus to term, you know, maybe we need to put a $200,000 bond on the impregnator of every woman who has — who would be forced to carry the fetus to term. It is a medical procedure. It is as safe as getting your tooth pulled. It’s a medical procedure that’s legal in this country, but for decades now, there have been those on the other side that basically have chipped away at it and somehow made it to be dastardly. It is something that is determined by a woman, her family, and her physician, her physician. And, I find it so remarkable that at a time when people don’t want to wear a mask, it’s their body. They don’t want to be, have the government telling them what to do with their body. They’re the same people that want to get into every woman’s uterus in this country.

MARTIN: As you, as you look back on your years of service, what concerns you most, and what’s giving you the most sense of hope?

SPEIER: I do think that we have lost sight of the fact that democracies are indeed fragile. And we had an attempted coup on January 6th — that has to that’s sink into our minds. We almost lost the democracy. We almost became an autocracy overnight. Had they had guns, many of us would have been annihilated. I was lying on the floor in the gallery of the house when the gunshot rang out, thinking, I can’t believe I survived Guyana, and I’m going to lose my life in this temple of democracy. So, it’s fragile. We’ve got to protect it. We’ve got to protect the vote. We’ve got to stop allowing the promotion of this big lie to have any credibility. It hurts all of us, not one party or the other. It hurts all of us. If we can’t have safe and free elections, then you know, welcome Putin into the United States because that’s what we’re basically saying.

[CROSSTALK]

SPEIER: Now, in terms of hope. We have great talent in the Congress among young members who serve. They’re passionate, they’re concerned. They recognize the issues that are important to the American people.

MARTIN: I do have to ask you a hard question, as a person who was almost murdered by a cult — and I said, you know, by all rights, you shouldn’t be here. I mean, you lost so much blood that by the time you actually got medical attention, you heard the doctors say you were within minutes of dying and it seems that it was just your will to survive, and also the assistance of the people around you who had survived. There are those who call the Republican party, at least elements of the Republican party at cult and as a person who was almost killed by a cult, do you think that that’s fair?

SPEIER: I think there are certainly elements within the Republican party who have looked at Donald Trump as a cult leader, a cult of personality. Jim Jones was a, you know, a culture of a religion, I guess, you could say that. But in both cases, megalomaniacs, required total loyalty, demanded, are convinced that they are right and that the world is out to get them. They are very anguished and ver paranoid. And it is, it shows in all of their actions. So when you lose your independence, when you lose your self-determination, when you lose the ability to make decisions on your own — when mind control is being imposed by this person, then you are a member of a cult. And I can look at a lot of people, on the Republican side right now in Congress who know that what they’re being asked to do was wrong, or that they don’t believe in, what’s being promoted, but they’re going along. So when you go along just to stay in office, wow, you’ve sold your soul.

MARTIN: Congresswoman Jackie Speier, thank you so much for talking with us.

SPEIER: It’s wonderful to be with you.