Brian Schatz to Democrats: Talk Like Normal People

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) can seem mellow. Having grown up in Hawaii, he exudes not only the Aloha spirit but what could be called shaka vibes. You know, that hang loose and catch-a-wave-when-it-comes sense of equilibrium that imbues many who hail from America’s Pacific paradise.

Schatz also looks younger than his age, 52. Don’t let style or appearance fool you, though.

Remarkably, at least for those who keep track of these things, as of Wednesday he has already been a senator for a dozen years. That’s not a long tenure in the Senate by historic standards, but because of retirement, death and defeat, he’s already creeping up the roster on the storied Appropriations Committee.

Schatz has also developed friendships with his fellow young(ish) senators, Chris Murphy (Conn.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and, across the aisle, Katie Britt (Ala.).

And now with a new Congress, he’ll be chief deputy whip, a post that, with one more likely retirement, could vault him to become the second-ranking Senate Democrat in just two years.

It may feel familiar to longtime Senate-watchers: the slight-of-stature, even-keeled young Democrat who gets elected to a safe seat from Hawaii at around 40 and stays…and keeps staying.

Schatz, however, is determined to go further than Daniel K. Inouye, the legendary war hero and Senate lifer he succeeded. While Inouye became chairman of the Appropriations panel, Schatz is eyeing the job that eluded his predecessor: Senate Democratic Leader.

Not that he’ll acknowledge as much.

I spent 45 minutes with Schatz earlier this month in his holiday and Hawaii-bedecked Hart office. He was blunt about a range of topics, most significantly his party’s failures and the necessity that they drop their faculty club and interest group vernacular. He was particularly scathing on the tic of using “center” as a verb.

It was a quippy though not flippant conversation, akin to an in-person and more in-depth version of what Schatz delivers on the medium that many in the political world know him from: X (although he confesses to drifting to BlueSky).

Yet on the matter of what’s been an open secret in Washington since Schatz lured the well-regarded Hill veteran Reema Dodin from the White House to become his chief of staff, the Gentleman from Oahu was terse. I couldn’t even get a shaka sign out of him, much less a wink.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

So what happened?

I’m going to continue to resist the temptation to give a unified theory of the case. And I think that if we solve for the last election, we’re not solving for the next one. But here are the things that I think I know. And let me divide it into three categories. One is, we’re operating in an information environment that is unfamiliar to us.

You’re not quitting Twitter are you?

I still have an account. I am posting mostly on Bluesky.

But on the information environment piece, I think there’s the question of left-wing infrastructure, which I think should not be confused with the liberal project of preserving journalism and democracy, which is super important. But the problem is, a lot of liberal donors believe if we just fund good journalism, that that’s a counterweight to the right-wing noise machine. And I think that we’ve now learned that we have to build our own infrastructure, and that’s going to take money and staffing and all of that. I will help with that, but obviously as a federal legislator, that’s not my primary function.

And then there’s the obvious part of this, which is the proverbial ‘Should we go on Joe Rogan?’ Of course we should go on Joe Rogan. We should go anywhere within reason where there are voters.

The third part of that, is that it’s not just that we’re unable to reach people. It’s that people are unable to reach us. So, when inflation was pissing people off, you could scarcely find a person in mainstream, left-wing circles, who would even talk about it. Except to explain that the Biden economy was better than other countries. And that the Biden stewardship was better than other industrialized nations. And by the way, I continue to think that’s true and totally irrelevant — If you’re talking about the question of are people pissed about the price of eggs, the answer is flatly yes they are. Not, ‘Don’t you know people are paying more in Paris and shouldn’t you be happy about that.’

That is a function of the information environment, and we tend to think about the information environment almost exclusively with our ability to push out our message and penetrate as opposed to our ability to hear people that we’re not normally hearing from. It’s not just that we should go on Joe Rogan or go on Theo Von. It’s that we should listen. We should swim in those waters. And understand that they’re going to say wacky things with which we disagree, because they’re just regular folks and most people say wacky things which we disagree. I think it’s not just push, it’s pull. We have to listen.

On the second point, on the left-right calibration, I’m less interested in that. I think it ends up becoming a Rorschach Test for where you already started. I haven’t seen a compelling case that the reason we were unsuccessful was either because we were too left wing or too right wing. Lots of places had a decisive victory for Trump and reproductive choice. Or decisive victory for Trump and marijuana legalization. Color me not just skeptical, but hostile to someone who uses this last election as a way to say the thing that they’ve been saying all along. I think that is a waste of time. I think this is a fight that has always happened in Washington -- people use a victory or a defeat to justify their worldview.

Bernie is going to carry the banner for Bernie no matter if you win 400 electoral votes or lose 400 electoral votes. 

Right, because if we won, that’s because Kamala adopted the five things that I demanded she adopted. And likewise the center-left folks who want to blame all of this on pro-Palestinian activists or police reform activists. All of that is bullshit to me.

The third piece that I think I know is this question of language. And of course all of these overlap with each other. But I saw an argument online that Latinx is the easy one. And it’s also easy to push back on because it’s just a fact that you can scarcely find a politician who says Latinx. But that’s not the point. The point is we have a whole language that’s maybe not offensive, or irritating. But definitely unfamiliar to regular people.

I think Kamala did a really good job on focusing on middle-class concerns. But I remember her saying, ‘I’m going to center the needs of the working class.’ And I thought to myself, I don’t know anyone in the world who says center. I know people in politics who say center. I know people in academia. I know people in advocacy who say center. But centering the needs, or making space for, or all of that, is a clear indication that you are not normal. And I put myself in that category. By definition, I am a coastal progressive.

But I think this question of language goes pretty deep. And it goes to not just being careful not to say things that are egregiously weird sounding, but it’s also the way we interact with advocacy groups. I remember saying I was for a cessation of hostilities in Israel and Palestine. And people said why don’t you say ceasefire? I’m thinking, that’s literally the same thing. I remember saying I was for a big, bold climate bill. And someone said why don’t you say Green New Deal? And this idea that there are magic words that we must be forced to say defines progressivism and political courage by essentially saying whatever a bunch of activists want us to say, as opposed to doing the thing. And I think that there are a bunch of people who see what we’re doing as performative, for that exact reason. But it’s also just alienating. This magic words thing has to go away.

How did that happen? How did Democrats become the party of trying to sound like the precise vocabulary of whatever the latest campus lingo is?

I don’t know, except that there is a category of folks on the left and the right who define themselves by their willingness to say unpopular things. And saying an unpopular thing to them, is definitionally courageous. And so even though if you look at most of our great leaders throughout American history, they tried to find the most popular way to say the thing they were working on. Not the most provocative way to say it. And yet, if you define yourself online or in real life as against the establishment, then however I phrase something, is definitionally not good enough.

Didn’t the campus culture effectively move into the workplace? At least in certain precincts of advocacy politics.

Maybe. The only reason I’m cautious to opine on that, is like, I’ve lived on a campus for awhile. But I do think that advocacy organizations will continue to have a place at the table. But they’re not in charge.

Let’s talk about the groups, go for it.

Well, I think there are a couple of things. First of all, this idea that we say things only in the way that they permit us to say it, is politically bankrupt.

And it’s politically stupid too, no?

Yeah, I mean if you want to win, you should say, here are the five things we want you to accomplish. And you, political communicators, you elected official. If you are an elected official, you are definitionally an expert probably at only thing. Which is what voters think and how to get votes— so, I think it is fair to say, look we have the following objectives. In fact, we have the following demands. We want to get these outcomes. How you phrase it, is really up to you. How you sequence it, is really up to you. And the way I’ve seen, especially in Washington over the last 12 years, courage gets defined. They define the words, they define the tactics. You can’t even have a tactical disagreement without being categorized as a coward.

They define the litmus test.

But the litmus tests are never about the substance. It’s never about the accomplishments. It’s always about the phrasing and the sequencing. And so, do I think the groups maintain a seat at the table? Absolutely. But I think there has to be a recalibration based on our collective failure. And that’s the point here. This isn’t about me punching people on the left. This is about all of us realizing, hey guys, we just lost. So definitionally, whatever just happened, didn’t work. And we have to recalibrate the way we work together.

Should there be an autopsy?

I’m open to it, but I’m just a little — I just remain skeptical about a false precision.

I don’t want to be overly optimistic, or glass is too half full, here for you guys. But have you considered the fact that maybe Trump is just a unique figure on the American political landscape and that he’s a celebrity and celebrity counts for a lot in this country. And he’s judged as a celebrity and because of that, he gets a discount on all the crazy shit he says.

I think that’s entirely possible. And I think we just remember that the door swings both ways in Washington. We need to remember that there’s no such thing as a total defeat or total victory. And that they will inevitably overreach.

That’s the best recipe for a comeback, by the way. 

Sure. But I do think we have some structural problems that — What worries me a bit is we could stage a political comeback without addressing our structural problems.

Based on their excesses or overreach?

Right. And so I think it is worth it for us to have a family conversation with the advocacy organizations about what’s working and what’s not. I think it is worth it to be precise about the language we use. And be unapologetic about trying to use language that is maximally popular. There’s nothing untoward or chickenshit about saying things and phrasing things in ways that are appealing to people. That’s half of the business that we’re in.

And by the way, that’s the other Trump trait. He isn’t a celebrity. He speaks like people speak now, including profanity. It’s normalized. It’s mainstream. And he says it — And you know what, everybody says it in this country with very few exceptions. 

I think that’s right.

He doesn’t have this Victorian, oh my good friend you’re from the great state of whatever crap. He sounds like a normal person — the guy at the end of the bar. For better or for worse. 

For better or for worse. I agree with you.

Have you talked to the VP since the election? 

No.

If you could talk to her right now about what happened, is there anything you want to ask her? 

No, I mean look, you could quibble along with the tactics. Even with a successful campaign you can look back and see where mistakes were made and where opportunities were lost. But I don’t think fundamentally that there were major errors made. I thought that was a relatively well executed campaign. Again, I could quibble. But I don’t think that’s what happened. I think what happened was, this was a change electorate. And a change election. And the sitting vice president didn’t look like the change president because that’s impossible.

Biden takes the hit for this, right? This is on Biden?

I think that’s right. I think that his departure enabled us to mitigate losses on the congressional side. I think it would have been a world historic blow out had he not departed. But I also think we might have had a puncher's chance had he announced his departure a year earlier.

To that end, and I’ve been dying to ask this question to people like you: Why in the world didn’t people like you who have a future in the party and a real stake in the party, after the midterms — November, December of 2022, two years ago from now —go to the White House and talk to the president and urge him to pass the torch?

I think there’s a distinction between being old and being not vigorous. Like nobody talks about — People marvel at Nancy Pelosi’s capabilities at her advanced age. Nobody even talks about the fact that Bernie Sanders is in his 80s. That’s actually not the question, right? Chronological age is no longer the primary question. It’s a question of vigor. And at the time, I was satisfied that he was sufficiently vigorous. And now I look back on it, and realize he was not.

Do you regret not having that conversation with him? 

Sure, but I’m not sure I would have been able to make the difference.

Did you talk about it with some of your colleagues here? Like hey, maybe a group of us should talk to him. 

I did not know the extent of the difficulty until the debate.

June of ‘24. And that’s the challenge, the acceleration in ‘23 and ‘24 because February ‘23, the start of the month he gives the [State of the Union] speech and then end of the month he goes to Ukraine on that 12-hour train trip. Both of those things he pulled off pretty well. So he has a good midterm, he gives a good speech up here and goes to Ukraine in a period of three months. There’s no appetite. 

Yes, there’s no appetite because there was no evidence.

And if we’re totally honest, he’s a victim of his own success. Got the nomination, won the presidency, got a hell of a lot passed in 2 years and had a good midterm. Things the wise guys as he would call them, told him he could never do. So in some ways, there was no capital in the bank for guys like you to go to him and say it’s time to hit the bricks back to Rehoboth, because…

He was at the craps table with table money. It’s hard to pull someone off the table when they’re on a winning streak.

Let’s turn to the present. Let’s just get straight to it. You obviously want to be the next leader of the Democratic caucus here. Can we just acknowledge that finally? 

No, I think Chuck Schumer is still in his prime. I think Chuck Schumer is an extraordinary and historical leader. And I like working with and for him. If there are opportunities for me in the future for me to serve in a different capacity, I’m definitely going to pursue them.

I thought you were talking about language and being more candid and straightforward and unadorned and now, you’re sitting here across from me, you’re going back to this politician speech. What happened to the 10 minutes ago Brian Schatz? Where’d he go? Bring him back!   

You may not believe this. But I really do view my role as trying to create a body of work over a period of time. And whenever the opportunity to do more presents itself, I’ll pursue it. But I’m in no hurry.

What I meant was not tomorrow, not next month or even next year. Even this Congress. I’m talking about — Your goal is not to be president, VP or Secretary of Ag. You want to be the Democratic leader, ideally you would prefer majority leader, in the U.S. Senate one day. 

I’m not ready to tell you the job I want in the future.

Fair enough, I’m not trying to troll you. I raise this because we’re at a point now where for the first time in 40 years we’re not going to have a Clinton, a Biden or an Obama run or loom over the next race. In the House we already have the passing of the baton to Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar, who are all younger generation. Here in the Senate, Senator Durbin facing reelection in ’26, may retire. It seems like we’re going to have a turning of the page in every corner of Democratic politics. But not necessarily the top of the Senate. What you’re saying to me, it sounds like is, well that’s for good reason because Chuck still has his fastball.

Chuck has his fastball, for sure.

So, you don’t think the Dems here need to have a similar generational turn?

I think it’s just a fact in super difficult circumstances, our Senate candidates outperformed the national environment. But I think where there’s room for improvement, is that we’re going to be the locus of power in Washington for Democrats now.

Why?

Because we don’t have the other two branches and the filibuster remains. So we still have some leverage here. And I think the reason that that matters is we can’t treat the national environment like it’s just the weather we need to navigate. Now we actually have to feel responsible for and be responsible for the national mood, the national message. I think we all have to step up in that regard.

Do you anticipate uniformity of Democratic opposition to the more, uh, flamboyant cabinet picks?

I don’t know that yet.

Aren’t you the whip?

We’re not going to — my position is, I want to wait until these nominations become formal, because I think some of them may not make it to the start.

Fair enough. Like which ones?

Well, I’m not going to tell you which ones — You can make your assessment about which ones won’t make it to the starting line. But I think that there’s a very solid chance that some of these folks will fail before they get to the Senate.

What’s it been like back here since the election with Senate Democrats? How would you describe the mood, the vibe, the conversation?

Somber.

It’s not shock, right?

No. Somber turning to serious turning to now we’re sinking our teeth into the work. And I think that there’s a recognition that we owe the people we’re fighting for — regular folks, but also activists and organizations — the truth. And part of that is that there’s a recognition that what we did just didn’t work. I can go and be the mayor of the hashtag resistance on the internet and I could get some clicks and maybe raise some money by email. But the point here is to succeed. I don’t think blanket resistance is what the public is calling for. But I also don’t think they’re going to be very happy if we shrug our shoulders and say, well, the guy won, this is what you get. They’re going to want to see some fight and I think we’re going to mount it. But the problem I think we had is that Trump’s ability to flood the zone creates multiple emergencies simultaneously. And if everything is an emergency, then nothing is.

Was the popular vote the real tell to you guys of yeah, we can’t do blanket resistance because obviously — 

Yeah, I think you’re right. I don’t know if that was the only thing. But I think it’s fair to say. Look, the public voted for this. Now, we could tell the public they were wrong. But that’s a hell of a thing to say. I do think one of the things we can say over time is that hey listen, you voted for this guy because you thought you were going to get a certain type of government. That’s not what you’re ending up getting. You voted for this guy because you thought prices were too high but he’s raising your prices. You voted for this guy because you thought he was going to protect the little guy. He’s actually not doing that. That, I think, is a case we can make.

But if our whole political theory of the case depends on us proving to a voter that they were wrong, that they were mistaken, that they were full of shit, that’s a loser. What you have to give people room for is for them to say, look, I made a very reasonable choice. I thought the price of gasoline was too high. There’s not enough money in my pocket. And now, this guy is making it worse.

So tell me about your new role here. 

Chief Deputy Whip. I will be helping to run the operation on the floor and keep us together as a caucus and operate with Cory [Booker’s] shop on the comms side. I love the floor. I like the aspect of politics and the Senate that is customer service. Not every member loves that. But I like to solve every individual problem. I think I’ve told you this before but Dickie Wong, the former Senate president in Hawaii, said 90% of politics is social work. And I like the social work aspect. I like to look at a very talented, diverse and sometimes even needy caucus and solve problems for folks. And so that’s part of what I’m going to try to do.

It’s pretty grim though. You lost, not even close, Ohio and Montana. The two most vulnerable incumbents. I guess, help me understand the path back to a majority if the party is not competitive in large swaths of this country. 

I think that’s the problem. If we assume we’re non-competitive in areas where we are currently non-competitive, then we’re capped at 51, 52 seats even at the best possible circumstance. And that also means our floor is something around 42, 43. And so we simply have to compete in places that we have not contested in the past. Now, there’s lots and lots of historical examples of states that weren’t in play that are now in play. And so, I don't know if it’s Mississippi. Or Arkansas. I don’t know if it’s Florida again. We cannot operate under the assumption that we can write off whole swaths of the country. But that also means again, the information environment in which voters and politicians are operating in, is not so tilted that they’re not even willing to listen to our candidates. Do I think we can be competitive and win the Senate back? Yes. Do I think we have a structural problem until we figure out how to talk to some folks? Yes I do.

Is that majority viable in ‘26 ?

Yeah.

But barely, right?

Yeah. On the other hand, the conventional wisdom was we had to draw to an inside straight to win the Senate two years ago. And we did. One of the things that the Trump experience shows us is that you cannot assume that any voting bloc is reliably in the tank for one party or the other.

The knock on you and your ambitions, unstated as they may be, is look, he’s a smart guy, he’s a talented guy, but he’s from a place that’s totally not reflective of the mainland. It’s a different world entirely. Why should Democrats empower you with any leadership opportunities going forward given you come from a safe blue state and you’re talking about a party that is trying to find its way back in red America? 

I think if I were running for president, that would be a pretty good knock. I also think you may want some people in leadership who aren’t always afraid of a tough vote.

What’s the hardest vote you took here?

Oh, gosh. Off the top of my head just because I ran into Denis McDonough yesterday, opposing the AUMF that Obama wanted on Syria. But look, I think the Democratic leadership should reflect America. And there should be people from blue states and red states and purple states. So I don’t think anyone should be automatically qualified or disqualified based on where they’re from.

A couple of fast final things. Number one, should Biden offer blanket, preemptive pardons to people who could find themselves prosecuted by a Trump DOJ?

I mean, I think it depends on what we mean by blanket and preemptive.

The Jan 6 committee members. 

My instinct is yes.

You’re not running for president.

Never.

You’re Mitch McConnell, you never want to look past the beautiful building across the street. But who appeals to you in ’28?

I think whomever we nominate has to talk like a normal person. That is to me the most important thing. Normal doesn’t mean that they have an affect that is identifiable midwestern or southern or some sort of regional — But this person is real. If you had them over for dinner, you could understand what the hell they were talking about. And so I think we are looking for someone who can plausibly fit in as a human being all across the country. I don’t know who that’s going to be. But the challenge is going to be, how do you maintain your progressive values and not sound like you just got your post-doctoral thesis in sociology. And God bless those people.

How many of your colleagues over the years have come up to you and said how do you do X, help me. 

A lot.

And the answer is, you just act like yourself and just talk like yourself?

Yeah, that’s literally all it is. I said, look, you have to be willing to say what you think in the moment. And so some people say oh, I can do that. And some people say, I’m not comfortable.