January 23, 2020

Van Jones Isn’t Ready to Give Up on Finding Common Ground With Trump

On the latest episode of the Mother Jones Podcast, the CNN star says he still believes bipartisanship can work.

Van Jones sitting next to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump

Mark Wilson/Getty

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As the Senate impeachment trial gets underway, lawmakers are sticking closely to the marching orders for their chosen tribe. Partisanship hangs over the nation, heavier than ever.

But Van Jones says he hasn’t give up on meaningful bi-partisan cooperation. The CNN star worked in the Obama White House as the “Green Jobs Czar”, part of a 30-year career that has seen him take on some of America’s most progressive causes, including the fight against mass incarceration. And under the Trump administration, he achieved his greatest victory in criminal justice reform yet. In December 2018, President Trump signed the First Step Act into law, an important reform that ultimately led to thousands leaving prison. 

While Jones has repeatedly called out Trump for being a bigot and a bully, he caught major heat from fellow progressives when he publicly praised Trump and the Republican party for their work on the First Step Act.

“Well, let me just say, with Trump, I got 99 problems, but prisons ain’t one,” Van Jones tells Washington DC bureau chief David Corn on this week’s episode of The Mother Jones Podcast. “It’s possible to literally oppose someone on every issue. But on the one issue, you agree with them, try to get something done.” 

“There’s a whole other value system on the right that is also offended by mass incarceration,” Jones says. “They see is an attack on liberty.”

Late last year, Corn joined Jones onstage for a live event at George Washington University, and asked him: When do you compromise? When do you cooperate? And what to do when you find yourself caught in brutal partisan crossfire?

Following the success of First Step at the federal level, Jones is trying to harness this right-left coalition to push for additional reforms on probation, parole, prison re-entry, and prosecutor misconduct, on both the federal and state levels, from his position as CEO of Reform Alliance, which advocates for criminal justice. 

“It’s already spawned about half a dozen copycat bills across the country,” Jones tells Corn. “There will be more bills. Trump would sign another bill tomorrow… But it’s deeper than that. This network that’s been developing is starting to grow.”

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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