it s interesting you ask that question because when i was first in the senate, we didn t have this designation, red states or blue states. that s something that came up at a later date, and that tends to put people in boxes. it tends to force maybe mid country states to think they re red and coastal states to think they re blue. i don t like that at all. i think there s another dynamic going on here. the senator of the country tends to think that the coastal states are a little elite. there s a little anti-elitism among mid states and red states, and we just it goes to the basic point we ve got to listen to each other more. that s the main thing. i remember when i was running for office, my inspiration was a former senator mike mansfield. he said, remember, max, you re the guy who s not always wrong, and you re not always right. and i remember that always. you just got to keep that in mind. i don t know what that s like. i m always right. kidding. thank you.
in montana, we like to say montana is one big small town. we just tend to know each other. people have known jon for the last 12 years and they trust his judgment. i think it won t hurt him very much. bigger picture. are you concerned that there are such wide swaths of the country where there are practically no elected democrats and wide swaths where there are no elected republicans? yes, i am very concerned. it s interesting you ask that question because when i was first in the senate, we didn t have this designation, red states or blue states. that s something that came up at a later date, and that tends to put people in boxes. it tends to force maybe mid country states to think they re red and coastal states to think they re blue. i don t like that at all. i think there s another dynamic going on here. the senator of the country tends to think that the coastal states are a little elite. there s a little anti-elitism
yourself who has traversed the ideological plane. you re not conservative anymore. you re a conservative, not a republican. this is a joke because i still believe in free trade. i still believe you don t go around giving welfare to corporate farmers and they have completely abandoned this view. i think there s a lot more to what you say than, perhaps, the defenders of the tea party want to admit. i think what they were motivated by was anger. you can say it was racial anger, you can say it was anger simply about losing an election, but when donald trump came around and gave them permission to be angry about race, to be angry about immigrants, to be angry about elites, they said, yeah, that s what we re really angry about. so, i think it was this almost anti-elitism, which you definitely saw during the tea party, that has now been formulated, has been reduced, has been really set in stone as
very liberal, and he s going to say to the people that s the official cosmopolitan urban world that hates me and benefit in a way from the anti-elitism, from the class warfare yeah, yeah. in many ways it s a little bit like trump reminding people of the urban elites that hate him, of the media hates him, of political correctness. are you falling into that trap? my burden is my past as a tv star. but pasts can be a life lesson, i m a political journalist for 10 years in russia. but of course in a totalitarian regime, one person can try to break the system with little tools, it s unfortunately the realistic picture that we have, and i realize that, but still, i want to use it until the end,
superficial cosmopolitan, urban world that hates me and, you know, benefit in a way from the anti-elitism from the class warfa warfare, you know, in many ways it s a little bit like trump reminding people of the urban elites who hate him. of the media who hates him, of political correctness. are you falling into that trap? my burden is my past as a tv star, but, you know, past cannot be a life sentence. i made my lessons and i m a different person. i m a political journalist for more than ten years in russia, but of course, in totalitarian regime, only one person, a brave person can try to break the system with a little tools or with some burdens. it s unfortunately the realistic picture of what we have, and realize that, but still, i want to use it to the end and being underestimated is something a