Speaker 1: Nicole Tisdale is a national security attorney with fifteen years
Speaker 1: of experience, including roles at the White House National Security Council,
Speaker 1: the US Congress's House Committee on Homeland Security, and the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty Biden Harris Transition. Her national security expertise includes cybersecurity, counterintelligence,
Speaker 1: and election security. And she is our guest today. This
Speaker 1: is Civic Cipher. I'm your host, ramses.
Speaker 2: Jah, and I am q Ward.
Speaker 1: All Right, so Nicole Tisdale, welcome to the show. I
Speaker 1: know that we've been waiting. We had to actually wait
Speaker 1: a little longer than we wanted to get to talk
Speaker 1: to you, but I'm glad that we get to talk
Speaker 1: to you today. How are you feeling this morning.
Speaker 3: I'm feeling good. I'm so excited to be on this podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm actually a fan. Before I got outreached from you all,
Speaker 3: I listened to you all and so it was when
Speaker 3: I saw in the inbox, you know, it's the formal
Speaker 3: email of like this is the podcast. I immediately responded,
Speaker 3: I said, I know who they are, and yes, whenever
Speaker 3: we can figure out the timing, I'm going. So I'm
Speaker 3: happy to be here.
Speaker 4: You you honor us, our listeners cannot see how big
Speaker 4: I'm smiling right now, But thank you so much, and
Speaker 4: like like ram to say, we are honored to be
Speaker 4: able to spend some time with you today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so so let's uh, let's get to know you
Speaker 1: a little bit better for our listeners. You have a Again,
Speaker 1: we start our show with a brief introduction, but you know,
Speaker 1: we like to open the floor to you to kind
Speaker 1: of establish a bit of rapport to our audience, or
Speaker 1: with our audience, I should say, so, you know, share
Speaker 1: a couple of details about your life, the things that
Speaker 1: make you, the things make you human. You know, where
Speaker 1: you were born, how you grew up, what motivates you
Speaker 1: every day, and sort of what led you to today's conversation.
Speaker 3: Sure, I'm happy to give folks some additional background. I
Speaker 3: will just start off because people are going to hear
Speaker 3: my accent and wonder how I'm in Washington, DC and
Speaker 3: I sound like this. So I'm originally from a no
Speaker 3: traffic light town in Mississippi. It's called Nettleton, Mississippi. It's
Speaker 3: two thousand people. It's a very uh working class town,
Speaker 3: but a lot of people live under the poverty line,
Speaker 3: myself included. That's where I started. I am a first
Speaker 3: generation everything to I always tell folks that I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know, the first person in my family to go
Speaker 3: to college. But I'm also the first attorney in my town,
Speaker 3: and so I have. My introduction to politics and civics
Speaker 3: and civic engagement is probably a little bit different from
Speaker 3: some of your other listeners because I grew up in
Speaker 3: a family where sometimes they didn't vote. You know, I
Speaker 3: have cousins now who work in plants and their shift
Speaker 3: is from seven am to seven pm. And guess what,
Speaker 3: the vote the Poland places are open from eight am
Speaker 3: to seven pm. So how are you going to vote
Speaker 3: if you have to go to work? But also, you know,
Speaker 3: because we live in a small town, most of us
Speaker 3: work and commute thirty minutes away. So the idea that
Speaker 3: you're going to like take your lunch break and be
Speaker 3: able to come back to your town vote and then
Speaker 3: get back to work, not only does that cost money,
Speaker 3: that cost time, and we don't always We didn't always
Speaker 3: have that in my family. So I've all before professionally
Speaker 3: getting involved in politics, I would say I was always
Speaker 3: kind of a little bit of a distance. It just
Speaker 3: didn't feel like it was something that was a part
Speaker 3: of our everyday life growing up. That being said, when
Speaker 3: I was introduced to politics and really public policy, it
Speaker 3: just made a lot of sense to me. At most
Speaker 3: of my life, I wanted to be an attorney. I
Speaker 3: wanted to be a lawyer. And then I went to
Speaker 3: college and I learned about public policy, and I remember thinking, oh,
Speaker 3: this is so much better than being a lawyer, because
Speaker 3: if I mess up, no one's going to go to
Speaker 3: jail and no one's going to lose any money. But
Speaker 3: clearly that's not how public policy work. But the idea
Speaker 3: that I could be a voice for people who didn't
Speaker 3: have a voice, and I could advocate, I could learn
Speaker 3: systems and then go advocate for people. That was very
Speaker 3: similar to being a lawyer in a courtroom to me,
Speaker 3: and it was really appealing to me because I know
Speaker 3: how public policy benefits had changed my life. Right like
Speaker 3: I we were on the SNAP program. I remember how
Speaker 3: important that that food was for us, but those essentials
Speaker 3: were for us. My dad is a union worker. My
Speaker 3: mom was employed in various places but never had stable
Speaker 3: employment after NAFTA was signed. So public policy had always
Speaker 3: been around me, but it wasn't until I got to
Speaker 3: college that I really understood how it was impacted my
Speaker 3: day to day life. And so this is turning into
Speaker 3: a really long answer.
Speaker 2: But what we want to hear.
Speaker 3: So after undergrad I went to law school. In law school,
Speaker 3: I really focused on public policy. So I always tell
Speaker 3: folks when everyone else was taking bankruptcy and corporate law,
Speaker 3: I was taken criminal procedure. I was taking legislative drafting.
Speaker 3: I was taking statutory law. I took every constitutional law
Speaker 3: class you can take. I was obsessed with understanding how
Speaker 3: the Constitution was, the ideas that were behind and creating
Speaker 3: the Constitution, but then how it had evolved, and really
Speaker 3: figuring out strategies where I could use the Constitution to
Speaker 3: advance my community. And so after that I started working
Speaker 3: in Congress for Chairman Benny Thompson, who most people now
Speaker 3: know because he chaired the January sixth Committee where we
Speaker 3: investigated the attacks on the capital in January sixth of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one. But before that, he also was the
Speaker 3: top Democrat and continues to be the top Democrat on
Speaker 3: the House Homeland Security Committee. And a lot of your listeners,
Speaker 3: I always tell folks, people think they have a little
Speaker 3: bit of distance on homeland security until you start talking
Speaker 3: about how it shows up in their everyday life. So
Speaker 3: it's not just when you go to the airport. It's
Speaker 3: also when you have a natural disaster and FEMA is
Speaker 3: there to help you and your community recover. It is
Speaker 3: TSA when you go to the airport, and I know
Speaker 3: people have strong thoughts about TSA, but it's you all
Speaker 3: are also based in Phoenix, Arizona. So it's also customs
Speaker 3: and border protection, so it is when you travel in
Speaker 3: and out of our country, and then some of the
Speaker 3: other things that we don't think about. It's also where
Speaker 3: our cybersecurity is. How so the idea that we want
Speaker 3: to make sure that your data is protected, but also
Speaker 3: we want to make sure that the water plant in Phoenix,
Speaker 3: Arizona is protected from a cyber attack. All of that
Speaker 3: stuff lives at the Department of Homeland Security. And so
Speaker 3: for ten years I worked on that stuff, very focused
Speaker 3: on cyber security counterintelligence. Counter Intelligence is just a long
Speaker 3: word for espionage policy, which is spypolgy. And then I
Speaker 3: also worked though I know everyone always thinks I'm a
Speaker 3: spy and then they're disappointed when I tell them that
Speaker 3: my spy tool is a word document, but you know,
Speaker 3: we got to have rules and regulations around how we
Speaker 3: actually do counter intelligence and how we do espionage. So
Speaker 3: Congress also gives money to agency so that they can
Speaker 3: conduct those activities. So you have to have someone in
Speaker 3: Congress who also is working on those issues. And then
Speaker 3: the kind of the other issue that I worked on
Speaker 3: a lot, and I think we'll get into it a
Speaker 3: little bit is counter terrorism. And so when I started
Speaker 3: working on counter terrorism, that was at the height of
Speaker 3: ISIS and al Qaeda. But over time we also saw
Speaker 3: the theme that that black people have been trying to
Speaker 3: highlight for a long time, which is, yes, there are
Speaker 3: foreign terrorists, but they are also domestic terrorists. And so
Speaker 3: you have the Charleston church shooting where Dylan Ruth went
Speaker 3: in and killed the black congregation member. That is the
Speaker 3: counter terrorism portfolio that I just kind of under the
Speaker 3: direction of Chairman Thompson, we were able to expand what
Speaker 3: counter terrorism is is not just isis them al Qaeda
Speaker 3: in Iraq and Syria. It is the Kluklux Klan in
Speaker 3: New Orleans or in Louisiana. It is sovereign citizens in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 3: And so it was a really great portfolio. I loved it.
Speaker 3: After ten years and helping Democrats take back the House,
Speaker 3: happy to get into the politics of why that kind
Speaker 3: of is important, I decided to start my own company.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I saw, especially after Donald
Speaker 3: Trump was elected in twenty sixteen, we don't always our
Speaker 3: community doesn't always know how to advocate because no one
Speaker 3: has taught us how to advocate. So I spent a
Speaker 3: lot of time. People would come and talk to me
Speaker 3: in Congress and they were really using activist tools, which
Speaker 3: are good tools. It's just they were trying to advocate
Speaker 3: with activist tools instead of advocacy tools. Or they're coming
Speaker 3: to us with like accountability tools, which is, well, we're
Speaker 3: not gonna we voted for you, so what are you doing?
Speaker 3: And it's like, well, the advocacy is what have you
Speaker 3: asked me to do, not we're going to hold you
Speaker 3: accountable for something we never asked you to do in
Speaker 3: the first place. I saw this need in this understanding
Speaker 3: that everyone is not going to be able to afford
Speaker 3: a lobbyist. They're not going to be able to be
Speaker 3: a part of a trade association where you have professional
Speaker 3: lobbyists who will go and advocate on your behalf. Once
Speaker 3: Donald Trump was elected, I think I personally felt that
Speaker 3: it was going to be my mission to teach our community,
Speaker 3: and I say our community, I mean any minority community
Speaker 3: how to properly advocate, because I think we are our
Speaker 3: best advocates, but sometimes if we if we don't structure
Speaker 3: our as advocacy in the right way, we're just not
Speaker 3: going to get results. And I think the first election
Speaker 3: of Donald Trump really show people we really have to
Speaker 3: spend just as much time learning how to advocate as
Speaker 3: we spend learning how to mobilize and how to do activism.
Speaker 3: It's the same kind of work that needs to be
Speaker 3: done on the accountability side. Like we have the NAACP
Speaker 3: Legal Defense Fund. It spends a lot of time and
Speaker 3: a lot of money on accountability measures that happen in
Speaker 3: the courtroom. Teaching people that middle wrong, which is advocacy.
Speaker 3: For me, I was like, this is going to be
Speaker 3: the perfect place for me, and so I wrote a
Speaker 3: book on how Congress works, called Right to Petition, and
Speaker 3: I just really started traveling around the country, and then
Speaker 3: once COVID hit, traveling around zooms just teaching people how
Speaker 3: to advocate. So people come to me with a problem
Speaker 3: and really just walking them through how to build a
Speaker 3: strategy and getting people to understand sometimes what you need
Speaker 3: is not a law, right Like a lot of people
Speaker 3: are like, well, we need Congress to pass a law,
Speaker 3: and you talk to them and it's like, you don't
Speaker 3: actually need a law. The issue that you're having is
Speaker 3: an oversight issue, Like you just need you need Chairman
Speaker 3: Thompson to send a letter to DHS and ask them
Speaker 3: why are they collecting people's cell phones at the border?
Speaker 3: What are the privacy regulations that they're trying to enforce.
Speaker 3: You don't need a law right now. So I did that.
Speaker 3: I joined the transition. The transition was something that I
Speaker 3: always worked on when I was in Congress, but I
Speaker 3: wanted to work on it with the Biden Harris administration
Speaker 3: because in twenty twenty, y'all, everything was such a mess,
Speaker 3: and I didn't you know, this is before January sixth.
Speaker 3: We knew that the transition to the Biden Harris administration
Speaker 3: was going to be rough, because you know, I spent
Speaker 3: four years dealing with the Trump administration trying to do oversight,
Speaker 3: try to ask questions, and from the inside, we just
Speaker 3: knew that they weren't doing a lot of things like
Speaker 3: there wasn't going to be a smooth handoff of policy
Speaker 3: because it had been so much chaos and turmoil the
Speaker 3: whole time that he was in office. So it was
Speaker 3: important for me to join the transition to do my
Speaker 3: part to really just make sure we could have as
Speaker 3: peaceful and smooth of a transfer of power and policy
Speaker 3: as possible.
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to throw you
Speaker 1: off track, but can you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: what the turmoil and what the chaos was like or
Speaker 1: what does that mean that where you were able to
Speaker 1: anticipate there be problems there and then and then please continue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean very specifically, like a specific example
Speaker 3: for DHS. One of the things that Trump administration had
Speaker 3: done is really use the Department of Homeland Security to
Speaker 3: politicize a lot of the visceral and hate that he
Speaker 3: had for communities of color. So I don't know if
Speaker 3: you all remember, but there was a time where ICE,
Speaker 3: Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, but also what we call FPS,
Speaker 3: which is the Federal Protective Service, they were actually going
Speaker 3: into places like Portland, Oregon where people were protesting Black
Speaker 3: Lives Matter and they were actually rounding up people. They
Speaker 3: were being used to scare people. That's not their mission,
Speaker 3: right Like isis mission is a immigration enforcement mission, the
Speaker 3: Federal Protective Services mission is to protect federal buildings, to
Speaker 3: politicize them and use them in a way that you
Speaker 3: can really scare and target black protesters and the people
Speaker 3: who support the black protesters. That is something that it
Speaker 3: wasn't There were people who were writing about it. It was
Speaker 3: on the press, but it was not on the front page.
Speaker 3: And that's what I always give as an example of
Speaker 3: a transition. A transition is responsible for digging through all
Speaker 3: of those all of those issues, whether big or small,
Speaker 3: and bringing them to the forefront and saying, this is
Speaker 3: what happened during the Trump administry, this is why it
Speaker 3: was unconstitutional, it was not the proper oversight wasn't there,
Speaker 3: and this is what we're going to do during the
Speaker 3: next administration. So it gets in the weeds. It's very weedy,
Speaker 3: it's very nerdy. I'm very aware that, but it's also
Speaker 3: something that I really enjoy doing because so much of
Speaker 3: what actually impacts our day to day life isn't always
Speaker 3: on the front page of the newspaper. But for those protesters.
Speaker 3: That was a huge issue. A lot of them were arrested.
Speaker 3: Now they had charges on their criminal record. You have
Speaker 3: to go in and recognize one what can we do
Speaker 3: to fix what has happened? Repair what has happened. But
Speaker 3: a good transition is also very proactive. How do we
Speaker 3: make sure this never happens again? And one of the
Speaker 3: things that we proposed and the Biden Heerents administration has
Speaker 3: subsequently done, is like, get really clear on what the
Speaker 3: mission of FPS is, who is doing oversight on FPS?
Speaker 3: And when they are doing things like rounding up protesters,
Speaker 3: Why are we still funding them? Why are we continuing
Speaker 3: to allow them to have this access? It gets very niche,
Speaker 3: but honestly, that's what most of the transition is. You're
Speaker 3: just digging through policies of the other for this case,
Speaker 3: the Trump administration, making sure that those are priorities to
Speaker 3: be addressed in the next administration.
Speaker 4: First of all, Wow, Yeah, the work that you're doing
Speaker 4: is so necessary, and I you know, we typically have
Speaker 4: an objective with these conversations, but just listening to you now,
Speaker 4: I am going to detour and as I say, cut
Speaker 4: across the grass here. How comes so many things? It
Speaker 4: seems rather that so many laws were broken, so many
Speaker 4: missions were violated, so many things were done incorrectly, seemingly
Speaker 4: with impunity. With the former president. He seems to kind
Speaker 4: of spit in the face of our laws, our law enforcement,
Speaker 4: our criminal justice community, and as you said, weaponize them
Speaker 4: for his own means. We see now that he's already
Speaker 4: preemptively sowing misinformation in doubt with regards to our election integrity.
Speaker 4: His his followers are setting ballot boxes on fire. That
Speaker 4: from your position, because those of us that are on
Speaker 4: this side of it are that are not as informed
Speaker 4: and you know, have not done the work which I'm
Speaker 4: signing Ramses and Eye up for your advocacy class, so
Speaker 4: you can go ahead and preregister us to tickets front row,
Speaker 4: please please front row. But for the listeners who may
Speaker 4: have doubts or fears with regards to the protection of
Speaker 4: their vote, and again our former president getting his base
Speaker 4: rilled up and preemptively telling them that everybody's cheating and
Speaker 4: in your position, like, how do you deal with that?
Speaker 4: And how come again he seemed to be able to
Speaker 4: violate in all these ways with impunity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So two questions. I'll take the how does this
Speaker 3: happen question first, and then we'll talk specifically about election
Speaker 3: and security. So I think it's important for folks to know, one,
Speaker 3: this is my job, right Like, my job is to
Speaker 3: go in. I'm the inside woman, I'm the inside person.
Speaker 3: My job is to go in and figure out how
Speaker 3: these systems work, how to use them for the benefit
Speaker 3: of our communities, but then also hold people who are
Speaker 3: abusing these policies accountable. I think it's important to realize
Speaker 3: some of the things that Trump was able to do
Speaker 3: was because he was president. So what I just told you,
Speaker 3: while the fps that did that wasn't there wasn't a
Speaker 3: violation of law that was enforceable. Most their missions, all
Speaker 3: of these things are really policies that are set into place,
Speaker 3: and the same way that I am, the kind of
Speaker 3: attorney who interprets can go in and interpret their mission
Speaker 3: for good. With the Trump administration also had as people
Speaker 3: who were dedicated to interpret these missions for bad.
Speaker 2: And so when that.
Speaker 3: Is your goal and you are you know, he had
Speaker 3: attorneys around him too. The way these policies are ridden,
Speaker 3: you want them to have a level of flexibility in them.
Speaker 3: What had not been, what we had not prepared for
Speaker 3: is to have a president like Trump who would just
Speaker 3: see all of these missions as a blank slate to
Speaker 3: do whatever he wanted to do. And so to your
Speaker 3: point of how is that possible. The way the I'm
Speaker 3: taking this a little bit into a civics lesson the
Speaker 3: way that kind of stuff happens is someone abuses the
Speaker 3: power and then Congress needs someone in the executive branch
Speaker 3: of abuses the power. Then Congress actually does have to
Speaker 3: go beyond we'll have a policy for this and say
Speaker 3: we'll have a law or we'll attach your money to it.
Speaker 3: And that's what we were able to do once Democrats
Speaker 3: took back control of the House. Because just to backtrack
Speaker 3: a little bit, so you have when Trump won, Democrats
Speaker 3: were not in charge of the House and they weren't
Speaker 3: in charge of the Senate. During the midterms, the Democrats
Speaker 3: took back control of the House and they took back
Speaker 3: control of the Senate. The House is responsible all spending bills,
Speaker 3: every agency, fps in this case, their money starts with
Speaker 3: the House. So it matters when Democrats control the House.
Speaker 3: Because what we were able to do with the Federal
Speaker 3: Protective Service is say this is the mission that we
Speaker 3: have given you. Money for when you go outside that mission.
Speaker 3: We're not giving you money for that. And that is
Speaker 3: just as that is just as much important to them
Speaker 3: as saying you will be eminalize for that. And I
Speaker 3: say this with the understanding to your listeners. It may
Speaker 3: not be the kind of justice that you want, right like,
Speaker 3: we may want them to be criminalized, and you may
Speaker 3: want them in jail, but please understand, when these agencies,
Speaker 3: when you start messing with their money, it's like anybody
Speaker 3: else messing with your money, right like, you're trying to
Speaker 3: figure this out. And so we didn't have to pass
Speaker 3: a law that says fps will never do this again.
Speaker 3: We were able to pass appropriations and pass laws with
Speaker 3: the money that said if you do this again, you
Speaker 3: won't have any money. And that is something that is
Speaker 3: much more responsive and it doesn't really require us to
Speaker 3: go to the to the judicial branch and then have
Speaker 3: them interpret what was a law broken. Also, trying to
Speaker 3: tie missions to money is much easier than just trying
Speaker 3: to pass a blank law that says you shall not
Speaker 3: do X or you shall do understand. So yeah, you
Speaker 3: just I mean, honestly, that's one of the tools in
Speaker 3: the advocacy toolbox, like, yes, you can actually penalize people
Speaker 3: with with criminal laws, but you can also mess with
Speaker 3: people's money and that goes a really long way in
Speaker 3: terms of public policy too.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Sure, Now, obviously you know quite a bit about I
Speaker 1: don't even want to start. You know a lot about
Speaker 1: a lot, and the rest of us are learning, and
Speaker 1: so you're in a position to do some teaching. And
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier that you know you've authored a book,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, your your original title was, uh
Speaker 1: was Civic Cipher if I'm if I'm not mistake?
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well I wanted to set up a newsletter called Civic SI.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yes, that's actually how I found out about
Speaker 3: you all. So I decided, I am I work on civics.
Speaker 3: I also work on cybersecurity, right, like that is kind
Speaker 3: of like expertise in national security. And so Civic Cipher
Speaker 3: was the perfect and I got online and I'm like,
Speaker 3: somebody already owns it im And I really just thought
Speaker 3: it was going to be somebody squad or better just
Speaker 3: like someone. I was like, oh, I can do this better,
Speaker 3: I can do better by this name. And then I
Speaker 3: found y'all, And I was like, Okay, so not only
Speaker 3: did y'all get the title before me and you have
Speaker 3: the idea before me, y'all are doing such a good
Speaker 3: job with it. Yeah, and to the point of, like
Speaker 3: my two love languages, right, like civics and cybersecurity, So
Speaker 3: I like civic cipher.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, no, we'll take that. We appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a funny story how that name came together.
Speaker 1: But I'm glad that there's a little bit of i know,
Speaker 1: serendipitous energy in the conversation we're having today and that
Speaker 1: you can be on the show. But you know where
Speaker 1: I was going with that was that, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: being in a position to teach, uh, being in a
Speaker 1: position to write. One of the things things that we're
Speaker 1: aware of is that you authored the February twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four Wired article. It's called the Hidden Injustice of cyber Attacks.
Speaker 1: So for those who haven't read it, discussed the scope
Speaker 1: of the article and kind of highlight a few things
Speaker 1: that people should know, things that you kind of imparted
Speaker 1: into that article.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, the whole idea of that article is we,
Speaker 3: especially you all, we spend a lot of time talking
Speaker 3: about civil rights and human rights issues, but the cybersecurity
Speaker 3: community has not really been involved in those conversations. And
Speaker 3: so when I say cybersecurity, I just mean the policies
Speaker 3: that protect people in cyberspace. So these are protection policies
Speaker 3: in digital space. And so the way that I think
Speaker 3: about it, I love analogies. Y'all. When you buy a
Speaker 3: new house, the plumbing, the appliances, the electricity, all of
Speaker 3: that is tech. That is tech policy. Your fire alarm,
Speaker 3: the lock on your door, that is cybersecurity. And so
Speaker 3: think when I tell people cybersecurity is everywhere you are,
Speaker 3: Like we are doing this interview right now on Zoom.
Speaker 3: The ability to adjust the mics and share the screen,
Speaker 3: all of that is tech policy. But the protection to
Speaker 3: make sure that only the three of us are on
Speaker 3: this call, because that is the only three people who
Speaker 3: are supposed to be on this call, that is the cybersecurity.
Speaker 3: And so when we talk about the hidden injustice of
Speaker 3: cyber attacks, a lot of the domestic policy issues have
Speaker 3: been separated from cybersecurity. So I talk about the tacks
Speaker 3: that have happened with the SNAP program, which I used
Speaker 3: to be on. The Snap program, which is our Supplemental
Speaker 3: Nutrition Assistance program is for low income families. It's also
Speaker 3: for natural disaster survivors, it's for veterans families, it's for
Speaker 3: anyone who needs help with food and essentials for a
Speaker 3: for a period of time. What we've seen in the
Speaker 3: last two years is attacks on these systems state by
Speaker 3: state have rose as much as twenty one hundred percent,
Speaker 3: which twenty one hundred percent sounds like a crazy number.
Speaker 3: I had to like kind of check that myself. And
Speaker 3: the reason that the attacks have happened is because, unlike
Speaker 3: your debit card or your check or your credit card,
Speaker 3: they don't have chip readers in EBT cards right now.
Speaker 3: And so what has happened is the I don't know
Speaker 3: if you all have heard about skimming machines where someone
Speaker 3: like actually swipes their card and then someone is able
Speaker 3: to steal their information. The reason we started moving to
Speaker 3: chips in cards is because it provides an extra layer
Speaker 3: of security. So what has happened a lot of and
Speaker 3: these are international criminal organizations figured out that we started
Speaker 3: protecting bank cards and credit cards but not EBT cards,
Speaker 3: and so these folks are actually stealing people supplemental nutrition
Speaker 3: program money.
Speaker 2: That's food stamps.
Speaker 3: Right, it's food SAMs.
Speaker 2: People are stealing food stamps.
Speaker 3: Yes, because your food SAMs not only can you buy food,
Speaker 3: you can also get cash advances, right, because these are
Speaker 3: it's covering more. The SNAP program is food, but it
Speaker 3: also covers other things. Took So what happens people show up,
Speaker 3: they're in Walmart. We've had story after story. You're in Walmart,
Speaker 3: you're at the grocery store, and you know, when you
Speaker 3: check your balance yesterday you had one hundred dollars on
Speaker 3: your card. You go and you buy your groceries, You
Speaker 3: spend because you know, people who are on this program
Speaker 3: are really budget conscious. And then they're getting to the
Speaker 3: checkout line and they don't have anything in their accounts.
Speaker 3: And y'all when I tell you these folks are draining
Speaker 3: their accounts, they're draining them down to the scent like
Speaker 3: and the way, from a policy standpoint, what happened is
Speaker 3: we didn't It takes a lot of money to actually
Speaker 3: give the state so that they can start to implement
Speaker 3: these EBT cars, and right now the states just don't
Speaker 3: have it, Like Arizona doesn't have the money to actually
Speaker 3: put the chips into people's cars. But then also for
Speaker 3: our community, you got to make sure that the stores
Speaker 3: that are going to take the cars also have the infrastructure,
Speaker 3: which cost money. And so one of the things that
Speaker 3: I'm trying to do in the Wired article is used
Speaker 3: that as an example of that is a cyber security
Speaker 3: issue that is not a domestic policy issue. These are
Speaker 3: international criminal organizations who do not care about the SNAP program.
Speaker 3: They do not care that people are going through the
Speaker 3: worst financial time of their life, right Like, if you're
Speaker 3: on the SNAP program, you are in financial straits. To
Speaker 3: take that money from them, and then we know that
Speaker 3: there is a security fix, but we're not giving people
Speaker 3: the security fix because they don't have the money. It's
Speaker 3: really just victimizing people over and over again. And so
Speaker 3: being really clear that the cyber security community cannot opt
Speaker 3: out of what some people call social policy issues. That's
Speaker 3: not a social policy issue. When an international criminal organization
Speaker 3: is stealing two hundred five hundred dollars from the most
Speaker 3: vulnerable people in the United States, you.
Speaker 4: Know, it's a really interesting thing that happens in our
Speaker 4: you know, in our democracy where the most vulnerable are
Speaker 4: really and Ramses has talked about this on the show
Speaker 4: before the most vulnerable are really by far the majority.
Speaker 2: Of people in this country.
Speaker 4: But in this time of hyperpartisanship, one side has done
Speaker 4: a masterful job of convincing those most vulnerable that they're
Speaker 4: not a singular community and sold seeds of division to
Speaker 4: make sure that there's no unity, which makes it, you know,
Speaker 4: easier to manipulate those of us that are most vulnerable
Speaker 4: to these type of attacks and least protected and have
Speaker 4: less in the way of means, resources and infrastructure. That
Speaker 4: brings me back to a conversation that we started earlier.
Speaker 4: A lot of people are intimidated, afraid, worried about casting
Speaker 4: their vote for this election and security surrounding you know,
Speaker 4: actually going to the ballot box. And you know, Ramse
Speaker 4: and I saw some stories yesterday of ballot boxes being burned.
Speaker 4: I know that in the life that you live and
Speaker 4: in the advocacy work that you do, that you see
Speaker 4: these types of attacks you and you understand why people
Speaker 4: have these fears. Can you speak to us about the
Speaker 4: efficacy of our election and how this is going to
Speaker 4: look for people who are voting early, for people who
Speaker 4: are mailing in their ballots and wondering whether or not
Speaker 4: they're going to get where they're going and all the
Speaker 4: stresses and the fears that come with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and thank you for it's circling us back. You.
Speaker 3: You asked this earlier and I forgot to address it.
Speaker 3: Sorry about that.
Speaker 4: I'm sure.
Speaker 3: So what you've described, and I think it might be
Speaker 3: helpful to listeners, I'll go through and let's put these
Speaker 3: into categories, and then we can talk specifically about each category.
Speaker 3: So there are three pillars of election security. The first
Speaker 3: is digital protection. That's how we protect how you cast
Speaker 3: your vote, how you register to vote, all of the
Speaker 3: things that happen in digital spaces. That is the first pillar.
Speaker 3: The second pillar is physical security, So to your point,
Speaker 3: that's making sure that you can vote without fear or intimidation,
Speaker 3: and so that's when we're talking about having poll watchers,
Speaker 3: but also in the case that you're talking about protecting
Speaker 3: the ballot boxes from arsonists and things like that. And
Speaker 3: then a third category is what we call the mental
Speaker 3: security and the psychological security. So when that comes up,
Speaker 3: that is when we talk about disinformation and misinformation. But
Speaker 3: also specific to the black community, a technical term that
Speaker 3: we call malign influence operations, and an influence operation is
Speaker 3: not necessarily that the information is false, but it is
Speaker 3: meant to influence your decision to vote, who to vote for,
Speaker 3: and specific to black people, just to vote at all.
Speaker 3: And so when we talk about that first pillar, the
Speaker 3: digital infrastructure, we feel very confident about the digital infrastructure
Speaker 3: that is in place this year. We felt very confident
Speaker 3: about it in twenty twenty. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 3: the head of the cybersecurity agency at DHS that we
Speaker 3: talked about in twenty twenty came out and said very
Speaker 3: clearly the election was not stolen, Votes were not changed.
Speaker 3: If you vote whoever you voted for, it was counted,
Speaker 3: and this was one of the most secure elections that
Speaker 3: we ever had. Trump fire him on Twitter. Right, So
Speaker 3: I will say again the cyberse security community has come
Speaker 3: out already and has said we feel very confident about
Speaker 3: the elections. The vote that you cast is going to
Speaker 3: be counted, and we feel confident that there won't be interference.
Speaker 3: And the reason they're able to say that is not
Speaker 3: just to make people feel good. Since twenty sixteen, we've
Speaker 3: put so much money and so much work on our
Speaker 3: infrastructure to make sure that everyone's vote is secure. And
Speaker 3: also we have a very decentralized system, right, So I
Speaker 3: always tell people squirrels are going to steal two on
Speaker 3: power lines and the Poland place may close. That does
Speaker 3: not mean that your vote isn't counted or there isn't
Speaker 3: going to be some type of backup plan. The second area,
Speaker 3: which is what we've seen increase since twenty twenty, is
Speaker 3: the physical security. So when you're talking about making sure
Speaker 3: people feel comfortable and safe in casting their ballots, so
Speaker 3: when you go to the voting place, you're not going
Speaker 3: to have people who are going to be circling your
Speaker 3: car or who are going to be threatening you. It
Speaker 3: also includes protecting our poll workers because when you're talking
Speaker 3: about some of the things that we've seen, you know,
Speaker 3: just last week a poll worker in Texas was punched
Speaker 3: in the face. When we say physical security, we're not
Speaker 3: just talking about making sure you are safe, but also
Speaker 3: the people who administer our elections are safe too. And
Speaker 3: I will tell you that is at a boiling point.
Speaker 3: The FBI, also other national security and law enforcement agencies
Speaker 3: are doing much more than they've ever done, but it's
Speaker 3: still a lot of rhetoric that is happening that's really
Speaker 3: just empowering people that they can do these kind of
Speaker 3: things right and not always being clear because and I
Speaker 3: think it's important that people follow the thread. You can
Speaker 3: do these things and you're going to be punished for them,
Speaker 3: and so making sure people know and really kind of
Speaker 3: using that as a deterrent. I tell people, I'm like,
Speaker 3: don't let Donald Trump have you in jail, because he's
Speaker 3: not going to pay for your attorney. He's not gonna
Speaker 3: pay for your bun. And this is going to be
Speaker 3: something that stays with you and follows you the rest
Speaker 3: of your life. The third area, which is something that
Speaker 3: we've seen much more targeting on the black community, is
Speaker 3: the psychological security and the mental security. And this is
Speaker 3: any type of digital operation that is really just impacting
Speaker 3: your will to vote. And this is something that I
Speaker 3: talked about in that Wire article two. What we've seen
Speaker 3: in the intelligence in the national security community is there's
Speaker 3: been this shift away from black voters being targeted to
Speaker 3: say you should be voting for Kamala over Trump, or
Speaker 3: you should be voting for Trump over Kamala. What people
Speaker 3: are saying is nothing is going to change. Why are
Speaker 3: you voting at all? None of this matters. You all
Speaker 3: were talking about this I think in response to some
Speaker 3: of the some of the people you love and you
Speaker 3: care about have been like, this really doesn't matter, like
Speaker 3: people are overhyping this. Nothing is going to change, I
Speaker 3: would say. And the warning for the black community is
Speaker 3: this is you are being targeted and you don't even
Speaker 3: know that you're being targeted. Because the thing about a
Speaker 3: democratic system is the people have to believe in the
Speaker 3: democratic system. Democratic systems provide snap program benefits to people,
Speaker 3: right and so democratic systems make sure that their people
Speaker 3: have water. It is also about the economy. And if
Speaker 3: you can get people to stop believing that voting matters,
Speaker 3: the next step is democracy doesn't matter. And for some
Speaker 3: of the countries, and this is you know, this is
Speaker 3: all real data and real information. For countries like a Russia,
Speaker 3: a China, or a run they don't actually care about
Speaker 3: the black community and the black community's issues as it
Speaker 3: relates to the economy, as it relates to police brutality.
Speaker 3: What they want to show is the democratic system is
Speaker 3: not serving you, it's not serving your family, is not
Speaker 3: serving your community. And for authoritarians, which is like a
Speaker 3: technical term that I try not to use, but it's
Speaker 3: just people who feel that power should be centralized in
Speaker 3: the hands of few. Democratic systems are a competition for
Speaker 3: them because the way the United States is set up.
Speaker 3: We're on the show now, I'm talking about President Trump.
Speaker 3: Even if he gets elected, I'm still going to say
Speaker 3: these things. And I have the right to say these things.
Speaker 3: You don't have the right to question and call out
Speaker 3: government in Russia and in China in the same way
Speaker 3: that you do in the United States. And for them
Speaker 3: to be able to show that you are safer in
Speaker 3: an authoritarian government, you are more you are more secure,
Speaker 3: and you can do we can protect you in a
Speaker 3: way in an authoritarian government that they can in a democracy.
Speaker 3: That's the ultimate psychological game. And I think for black folks,
Speaker 3: and I talk to my family and friends, they're just
Speaker 3: always like, I don't think anybody in Russia knows that
Speaker 3: I exist, And I'm like they do. We have for
Speaker 3: so long people have tried to tell us that we
Speaker 3: are not an empowered community that we've started to internalize
Speaker 3: that and so we don't actually think that an intelligence
Speaker 3: service or a military service in Russia cares about what's
Speaker 3: happening in Tuplo, Mississippi, or what's happening in Phoenix, Arizona
Speaker 3: in the black community. But time and time again, we've
Speaker 3: seen the intelligence that they do. They are watching, they
Speaker 3: are seeing these messages in hopes that we will pick
Speaker 3: them up and we will stop to start to opt
Speaker 3: out of these democratic systems.
Speaker 2: Okay, so.
Speaker 3: I know that's a lie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know if this counts. But you
Speaker 1: made a comment earlier about counterinte counter terrorism, and you
Speaker 1: said we might circle back to that. What you've just
Speaker 1: said feels like a terrorist attack, but a digital or
Speaker 1: a cyber a terrorist attack on citizens of the United
Speaker 1: States of America right now, I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: using the right terms. This is not my field of expertise,
Speaker 1: but I want to use this as an opportunity to
Speaker 1: circle back to your comments saying that you wanted to
Speaker 1: develop more of a conversation about counter terrorism. So so
Speaker 1: just talk to me about kind of what was in
Speaker 1: your mind when you initially fired that word off, and
Speaker 1: perhaps what you've done or what you would like to
Speaker 1: see done in the next administration, and if if I'm
Speaker 1: connecting those two pieces at the right place, because that
Speaker 1: immediately made me think back to that point in the conversation.
Speaker 1: So yeah, explain.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to so in terms of this election, and
Speaker 3: everybody can pick what their issues are, but I'm a
Speaker 3: two issue voter and everything that I vote for can
Speaker 3: be categorized in two areas. The first is this is
Speaker 3: a little bit of a sports analogy for the sports fan,
Speaker 3: it's defensive policy.
Speaker 2: Right again, defensive policy, yes, So.
Speaker 3: Two policy areas for me, defensive policy and offensive policy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we talked a little bit about offensive policy. And offensive
Speaker 3: policy for me is what are you doing to stimulate growth? Right?
Speaker 3: And what that means is how are you helping poor people?
Speaker 3: How are you helping black people? Is that for giving
Speaker 3: student loans? Is that increasing social security benefits? Is that
Speaker 3: making the SNAP program more accessible for folks and increasing
Speaker 3: those issues? So when we talk about Kamala harris policy
Speaker 3: on offensive policy, she's doing a really good job. I
Speaker 3: tell people, I don't actually know what Trump's offensive policy
Speaker 3: is other than he's going to give tax breaks to
Speaker 3: the rich. But I tell people I vote in my
Speaker 3: own interest. I'm not a billionaire, and so I'm not
Speaker 3: voting for billionaires to get a tax break that's not
Speaker 3: going to help me. So when we talk about this
Speaker 3: other option or the other policy option. That's defensive policy,
Speaker 3: and that's protecting minorities. That is where we talk about
Speaker 3: counter terrorism. That is where we talk about counter intelligence,
Speaker 3: which again is counter espionage policy, but it's also where
Speaker 3: we talk about cybersecurity. I think people have gotten a
Speaker 3: little bit far removed from the Trump administration, so we
Speaker 3: forget about some of the defensive policies that he had.
Speaker 3: And so one of the biggest issues for me that
Speaker 3: I worked on in Congress and then to the White
Speaker 3: House to advocate that we never see something like this
Speaker 3: again are black identity extremists. I don't know if you
Speaker 3: all remember this term, but in twenty seventeen, this is
Speaker 3: eight months after Trump got elected, the FBI decided that
Speaker 3: black people who have this increased perception of police brutality
Speaker 3: were a danger to police, and so they issued this
Speaker 3: it's an unclassified report and you can people can look
Speaker 3: it up. It was an unclassified report issued by the
Speaker 3: FBI that went to every local law enforcement officer in
Speaker 3: the country that said, here are the things that you
Speaker 3: should be on the lookout for. Know and understand that
Speaker 3: these people may these black identity extremists, may be attacking you.
Speaker 3: I tell people all the time. That's a really good
Speaker 3: example of like why you need to dig through stuff.
Speaker 3: That policy came out eight months into the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: Trump empowers people even when he doesn't put his fingerprints
Speaker 3: on it. I don't know that that memo made it
Speaker 3: up to the White House the way we know the
Speaker 3: separation of our intelligence gathering and our warnings versus the president,
Speaker 3: who is a political leader. I tell people he probably
Speaker 3: didn't know that that warning was gonna come out, but
Speaker 3: he empowered people at FBI that they could release something
Speaker 3: like that and they would be okay. Those people it
Speaker 3: was eight months into his presidency. Those folks probably were
Speaker 3: there during the Obama administration, but they knew that wasn't
Speaker 3: gonna fly. They knew they couldn't do that. And so
Speaker 3: when you talk about domestic terrorism and what it means
Speaker 3: for Black Americans and black folks in their day to day,
Speaker 3: it was that because if you are a black identity
Speaker 3: extremist or if you just look like you might be,
Speaker 3: that means I can pull you over. That means we
Speaker 3: can do surveillance on you for prolonged periods of time
Speaker 3: without a warrant, without your knowledge. It also means means
Speaker 3: that we can arrest you, and we can basically amplify
Speaker 3: the charges. So if you have a peaceful protest and
Speaker 3: something happens and maybe there's some kind of property damage,
Speaker 3: you're gonna get charged at a very different level if
Speaker 3: we have now decided that you're a part of a
Speaker 3: terrorist movement called Black identity extremists. I don't want to
Speaker 3: get too in the weeds for people on that, because
Speaker 3: I will say one of the things that the Congression
Speaker 3: of Black Caucus and we were able to do in
Speaker 3: Congress is we made sure we talked about this widely
Speaker 3: to everyone but civics here, but also strategy. We were
Speaker 3: in the minority when that intelligence report came out, so
Speaker 3: we weren't in a place going back to the money
Speaker 3: to say FBI like we'd sent letters. We tried to
Speaker 3: do oversight. We wanted to know who who signed off
Speaker 3: on this, who gathered the information, how long has this
Speaker 3: been in the works. But we weren't in the We
Speaker 3: weren't in the majority, and there's no substitute for being
Speaker 3: in charge. And the power that we were able to
Speaker 3: use was really the activist community. And so the advocates
Speaker 3: started talking to the activist community to be like, these
Speaker 3: are these police are going to be policing your protests,
Speaker 3: and now they have basically been given a blank check
Speaker 3: to say that you are black identity extremists. We need
Speaker 3: to as a collective all say that this is bad
Speaker 3: and we won't stand for this. And so we were
Speaker 3: able to get the FBI to rescind the memo. But
Speaker 3: I use that as an example of like, that is
Speaker 3: some of the chaos and craziness that was going on
Speaker 3: during the Trump administration. The FBI created a new terrorist
Speaker 3: movement that was just focused on black identity extremists. And look,
Speaker 3: they said it was a lot of things. It was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: you know, some of these people are sovereign citizens. Sovereign
Speaker 3: citizens don't believe in federal government, they don't believe in policing,
Speaker 3: they don't pay their taxes. Well, you can, black people
Speaker 3: can be sovereign citizens. We were not saying that.
Speaker 2: It is impossibly not the same. Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 3: Not the same. And so when we talk about domestic
Speaker 3: terrorism and what that looks like, I think I think
Speaker 3: people may assume that it's going to be these big
Speaker 3: sweeping changes, but that is something that as you wherever
Speaker 3: you are listening to y'all's podcast. Your local law enforcement
Speaker 3: got that memo, and that put a target on your back,
Speaker 3: whether you knew the target was on your back or not.
Speaker 3: That is what happens when the Trump administration is in charge.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 4: With regards to cybersecurity, we tend to pay a lot
Speaker 4: of attention to foreign interference. You know, we've spoken about Russia,
Speaker 4: We've spoken about Iran and China. I want to keep
Speaker 4: us where we are when we talk about domestic terrorism.
Speaker 4: You spoke earlier about mental and psychological security. That spoke
Speaker 4: to me specifically. You've listened to our show before, so
Speaker 4: you've probably picked up on this. Ramses is my brother
Speaker 4: outside of Civic Cipher. But with regards to our show
Speaker 4: and all of the stories and information that we have
Speaker 4: to digest to do this show effectively, as you could imagine,
Speaker 4: a lot of it is heavy, a lot of it
Speaker 4: is discouraging, a lot of it is demotivating, and Ramses
Speaker 4: is like my optimist center, like everything's going to be OKAYQ.
Speaker 2: You know, we're going to survive this. We're gonna be fine.
Speaker 4: But he knows I've been exceptionally stressed out about this
Speaker 4: election and It has nothing to do with Russia. It
Speaker 4: has nothing to do with China, It has nothing to
Speaker 4: do with Iran. It has to do with places like Virginia,
Speaker 4: where the Supreme Court is saying that they can continue
Speaker 4: to purge the voting polls less than a week from
Speaker 4: the election. It has to do with the United States,
Speaker 4: where on a microphone in front of cameras, Mike John
Speaker 4: and Donald Trump have set out loud that they have
Speaker 4: this secret, this little secret between them that he knows
Speaker 4: that they're going to be fine with regards to the
Speaker 4: House and this election. How are we supposed to feel
Speaker 4: watching things like this happen?
Speaker 2: How do we go?
Speaker 4: How do we move forward hopeful that our rights are
Speaker 4: being protected and that this thing isn't just being taken
Speaker 4: from us. They say that every accusation by the GOP
Speaker 4: and and you know Trump's MAGA movement, every accusation is
Speaker 4: really a confession. Everything that they want to say that
Speaker 4: we are going to do in the future they are
Speaker 4: actively trying to do. Now, how should we feel and
Speaker 4: what type of things are in place to fight against
Speaker 4: things like this When they're not even they don't even sneak,
Speaker 4: they're not even trying to be covert. They're saying out
Speaker 4: loud that we're going to try to take this from you.
Speaker 4: And you know, there's election officials all over the country
Speaker 4: because you mentioned that there's it's not a singular centralized system.
Speaker 4: There's all these local governments, all these local offices that
Speaker 4: are facilitating our election, with people who seems Trump has
Speaker 4: indoctrinated saying that they're not going to certify this election
Speaker 4: and all these things. For someone like myself, and I
Speaker 4: would imagine, you know, some of our listeners might feel
Speaker 4: the same way, this is terrifying to me.
Speaker 3: These are heavy topics, and I want to take a
Speaker 3: point to just say you all have also done an
Speaker 3: amazing job this election season of having national security folks,
Speaker 3: having black people who work on these issues. You all
Speaker 3: have shared your platform with us, and so I one
Speaker 3: thank you all for that, but also put it in
Speaker 3: context for you all. When we come on these shows,
Speaker 3: we are trying to talk to you about the worst
Speaker 3: that could happen, and we're highlighting the bad things that
Speaker 3: are happening because we want people to have an awareness
Speaker 3: and said, I don't want y'all to think about this
Speaker 3: all day every day. That's actually not what a healthy
Speaker 3: democracy is supposed to look like. Like you're not supposed
Speaker 3: to be in the grocery store worried about Russian criminals
Speaker 3: taking money from people in the staff program. So know
Speaker 3: that you all are getting a disproportionate amount because you
Speaker 3: all are providing a place for us to have these conversations.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's right.
Speaker 3: The other thing that I would say is really kind
Speaker 3: of going back to democracy as a whole, which now
Speaker 3: I'm going to sound like the I'm being overly optimistic,
Speaker 3: but it is true. We have the systems in place.
Speaker 3: We just cannot give up on the systems. And that
Speaker 3: is what scares me the most where and it's why
Speaker 3: I try to double down so that our people know
Speaker 3: that you are empowered. Like you don't think that your
Speaker 3: vote will change anything, but people abroad, our adversaries abroad,
Speaker 3: they actually know that it will. When you talk about
Speaker 3: how do you handle all of this, I will encourage
Speaker 3: you all to figure out how to compartmentalize this. You know,
Speaker 3: when I told I've shared this story with people, my
Speaker 3: job in Congress was to show up when things are
Speaker 3: at its worst. Right, So I tell you I worked
Speaker 3: on cybersecurity. You work on counter terrorism. You work on
Speaker 3: counter intelligence. I don't show up with a whole lot
Speaker 3: of good news, right, And a member of Congress said this,
Speaker 3: He's like, every time I see you come, tell us
Speaker 3: something sad, or you tell us something that makes me mad.
Speaker 3: And I said yes, and then we do something about it.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, when we saw and we have the
Speaker 3: reports now that the black community was targeted by Russia
Speaker 3: more than any other group, more than any other community.
Speaker 3: Everything that we have done is the reason why I
Speaker 3: can sit here now in twenty twenty four and say
Speaker 3: your vote is going to be protected in terms of
Speaker 3: the decentralization of our elections. That's actually something that benefits
Speaker 3: our country in a different way than other countries. Yes,
Speaker 3: there are election deniers who have a role in the election,
Speaker 3: but since twenty twenty, most states, including Arizona, you all
Speaker 3: have really almost taken away the power of one single
Speaker 3: person to make the final call, to make the final judgment.
Speaker 3: That's Civics in action. That wasn't the case in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Arizona is a really good example. The way you all
Speaker 3: had your structure set up, you had given a lot
Speaker 3: of power to one person to certify now there are
Speaker 3: five different people across five different areas that have to
Speaker 3: certify you all's results. I'm not saying that y'all are
Speaker 3: not going to have a crazy person or an election denier,
Speaker 3: but I'm saying we got four other opportunities to get
Speaker 3: that right. To me, that is advancement, and that's what
Speaker 3: growth looks like. The idea that everything will be perfect
Speaker 3: or that there won't be problems, it's too high of
Speaker 3: a bar, and you're gonna you're to feel overwhelmed and
Speaker 3: you're going to feel discouraged. I compartmentalized because I know
Speaker 3: I can't do all of these things. The reason I
Speaker 3: show up and I talk to black people and Hispanic
Speaker 3: communities and low income communities about China I run in
Speaker 3: Russia is because I don't show up and talk to
Speaker 3: them about the Social Security Administration. I know that we
Speaker 3: have things that we need to be doing over there.
Speaker 3: I have to trust that there are other professionals who
Speaker 3: are doing this work too. I think that is the
Speaker 3: because even coming on here trying to make sure people
Speaker 3: have an awareness about the Hairst administration and what it
Speaker 3: will be, it is going to be lots of people
Speaker 3: making sure that nothing falls through the crafts, and if
Speaker 3: you try to take on everything at one time, you
Speaker 3: are going to be overwhelmed. And I think that's also
Speaker 3: what's hard for voters in these elections every four years.
Speaker 3: There are now fifteen things that you got to worry
Speaker 3: about that you weren't necessarily thinking about before. The role
Speaker 3: is to elect the adult in the room who is
Speaker 3: going to make sure that professionals are working on this
Speaker 3: and then they're doing it in a strategic way that
Speaker 3: is going to benefit the most people. But you really
Speaker 3: do have to compartmentalize this. And I will say because I,
Speaker 3: you know, you talk about these heavy topics and for
Speaker 3: the people who can't see us, I have on a
Speaker 3: red address and I try to do these intentional things
Speaker 3: because especially black communities, low income communities, we already have
Speaker 3: so many burdens on us. Yes, indeed, we already have
Speaker 3: so many things that we are worried about. The reason
Speaker 3: that I show up and I, you know, fight through
Speaker 3: speech impediments and nervousness because I would love to just
Speaker 3: write about these things and never talk about them. It's
Speaker 3: because I want people to know. I don't want you
Speaker 3: to think about this every day, but know that I'm
Speaker 3: working on this every single day, like we are. I
Speaker 3: will make sure that we do not have another black
Speaker 3: identity extremist memo that is going to your local police officers.
Speaker 3: We are going to make sure where we are. Literally
Speaker 3: now there's legislation in Congress. We're figuring out how to
Speaker 3: get these chips into these EVT cards because we cannot
Speaker 3: keep letting criminals take money from the most vulnerable votes.
Speaker 3: There are people who are committed to working on this,
Speaker 3: but every four years, every two years, every other year,
Speaker 3: for your local elections, we just need people to do
Speaker 3: one thing, and that is to vote, and to be
Speaker 3: clear that that's the accountability piece, right. I think for us,
Speaker 3: the message that I hear are seeing that people are
Speaker 3: attacking our will to vote scares me more than any
Speaker 3: kind of terrorism issue, more than any other cybersecurity issue,
Speaker 3: because if people give up on this system, I don't
Speaker 3: know how I'm going to get them back.
Speaker 2: Well, let's let's let's go with that for a second
Speaker 2: while we're here. You know, people.
Speaker 1: Feeling disengaged, people feeling like you know they're they're vote
Speaker 1: won't make a difference. People who are susceptible to the
Speaker 1: subtle and deliberate influences of either foreign actors or people
Speaker 1: who you know, maybe they're domestic actors, but they pedal
Speaker 1: misinformation and disinformation. Let's talk about not only the importance
Speaker 1: of civic education and certainly in a polarized political climate,
Speaker 1: how important civic education is, but let's also discuss for
Speaker 1: the benefit of our listeners and their communities around the country,
Speaker 1: maybe some best practices that they can adopt, especially when
Speaker 1: it comes to consuming online or other digital information.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a really good question, and I get
Speaker 3: asked this a lot when I do community events. The
Speaker 3: number one thing I tell people is you have got
Speaker 3: to figure out who your trusted messenger is. People are
Speaker 3: listening to this podcast, if they've decided to cite that
Speaker 3: civic cipher, is going to be their trusted messenger. That
Speaker 3: is your trusted messenger. Now you got to be clear.
Speaker 3: Your trusted messenger is not going to cover everything that
Speaker 3: happens in the world and give you a position on it.
Speaker 3: But remember I said, I have those two policy issues
Speaker 3: that are my primary concern I know who I go
Speaker 3: to to discuss those two issues. For me, my trusted
Speaker 3: messenger is the NAACP. But for other people it may
Speaker 3: be color of change, it may be urbanly. I tell
Speaker 3: people you don't have to have an affiliation with every organization.
Speaker 3: I pay my membership dues to the NUBACP because I
Speaker 3: know that once a week I'm going to get a
Speaker 3: national newsletter and then I'm a part of a local chapter,
Speaker 3: and so I know they will tell me what's going
Speaker 3: on in Washington, DC. Because we also have city council
Speaker 3: elections that are coming up, we have mayorial elections. I
Speaker 3: can't keep up with all of these things, right Like,
Speaker 3: I wake up every morning as part of my job
Speaker 3: to read what happened in Russia and run in China.
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily have the time or the mental space
Speaker 3: to keep up with what is going on in the
Speaker 3: city of Washington, DC. When you have a trusted messenger,
Speaker 3: they will clear through the noise for you. And I
Speaker 3: think that's especially for folks in Arizona. But your listeners
Speaker 3: may be in Detroit, they may be in la If
Speaker 3: you start listening to everybody all the time, it is
Speaker 3: going to get really difficult to know who you can trust,
Speaker 3: and then you're gonna be inundated with so much noise
Speaker 3: that it makes it really will just make you hesitate
Speaker 3: to do anything. And so having trusted messengers that you
Speaker 3: can go to, and you know, it's more than just
Speaker 3: the newsletters, it's their social media and you can just
Speaker 3: connect with folks on multiple levels. All I've been on
Speaker 3: you all socials too. You have this podcast, but y'all
Speaker 3: also in the comments, and y'all are talking to people
Speaker 3: and your question. But also when you don't know something.
Speaker 3: One of the things I appreciate about y'all, you say,
Speaker 3: I don't know, but we'll figure it out or we'll
Speaker 3: come back to y'all on that. And that's what I
Speaker 3: tell people when you're a trusted messenger. And as I'm
Speaker 3: a trusted messenger, that doesn't mean I always know the answer,
Speaker 3: but it means I'm not giving you false information. And
Speaker 3: so when I say something, I'm saying it because it
Speaker 3: is true. That is how we build our trust. But
Speaker 3: also when I don't know something, I will tell you
Speaker 3: I don't know that. And I saw you all had
Speaker 3: Ambassador Susan Rice on here, who ran the Domestic Policy
Speaker 3: Council for the Biden Harris administration. They the Domestic Policy Council.
Speaker 3: I was on the National Security Council. They work on
Speaker 3: so many issues that I would get overwhelmed, but I
Speaker 3: knew everything that they were doing it was important, but
Speaker 3: I had to just also entrust that they were doing
Speaker 3: what needed to be done.
Speaker 1: Of this.
Speaker 3: One of the things that happens with our elections is
Speaker 3: you are picking a president who will ensure that your
Speaker 3: priorities are being met even when you don't know all
Speaker 3: of the day to day things that are happening, and
Speaker 3: that's really what you want. Like I tell people, I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know, the Trump administration kind of drove us all
Speaker 3: crazy because every day people were getting fired on Twitter.
Speaker 3: All of these policies were changing at the speed of
Speaker 3: a tweet. That was overwhelming because we knew there was
Speaker 3: no diligence that was going on behind the scenes. And
Speaker 3: also it was creating instability because day to day you
Speaker 3: didn't wake up and know what was going to happen.
Speaker 3: The Hair's campaign and what the Hairs administration would be
Speaker 3: is stability and calmness. And so some of this anxiety
Speaker 3: that you are feeling is, yes, because it's an election
Speaker 3: season and we all feel a little bit more anxiety,
Speaker 3: but it's also because we have a memory and we
Speaker 3: know what that anxiety was like during the administration and
Speaker 3: for black people. I keep telling folks this. I'm like,
Speaker 3: some people are just going to vote, and it's like
Speaker 3: a football game, right Like, it's like I want my
Speaker 3: team to win. Black people, Hispanic people, this is our livelihood,
Speaker 3: right Like, I'm talking to you all about a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff. But the truth is, if my brothers are
Speaker 3: being pulled over by police in Mississippi and in Tennessee,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be able to go to that
Speaker 3: White House and think about what's happening in China or
Speaker 3: what's happening in im Prussia. Yeah, and so I say
Speaker 3: that to say I don't have that was a lot
Speaker 3: to say, I don't have an immediate If you do X,
Speaker 3: why will happen? But you do have to compartmentalize. And
Speaker 3: I would tell people use your anxiety for something positive,
Speaker 3: like what you are talking about, Q. And I know
Speaker 3: you've talked to other people and you've talked about this
Speaker 3: on the show a lot. I think people have to
Speaker 3: be reminded. People are getting too far from what Trump did.
Speaker 3: The reason I talk about black identity extremists is because
Speaker 3: when we talk about Cointaeil pro people are like, oh,
Speaker 3: from the sixties and the seventies. I'm like, no, I'm
Speaker 3: talking about twenty seventeen. This is you. This is something
Speaker 3: that happened to you. I do think there will be
Speaker 3: a period post election where the anxiety will come down,
Speaker 3: but we'll still have it because we got to wait
Speaker 3: on the election to be called, and now post January sixth,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, we all got to kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: you gotta be vigilant because we got to get through
Speaker 3: January sixth, and we got to get through the inauguration.
Speaker 3: I will tell people there are folks that once we
Speaker 3: get past the election, if we elect Harris, there will
Speaker 3: be people who will make sure that folks who are
Speaker 3: committing crimes, who are being violent, who are intimidating post
Speaker 3: election are held accountable in a way that these people
Speaker 3: will be rested, They'll be charged so that the folks
Speaker 3: on January sixth show they know that they can't do
Speaker 3: that again. Most of the things that have happened the
Speaker 3: January sixth Committee in Congress, but also those charges, those
Speaker 3: acquisitions are sorry, those convictions are to show people like
Speaker 3: there are consequences to your action, and just because we
Speaker 3: don't always know all the consequences. It does not mean
Speaker 3: that they aren't happening, but you have to just kind
Speaker 3: of dig at that and keep forward. But that was
Speaker 3: a lot to say. You all are getting one because
Speaker 3: of the work that you all are do, You're getting
Speaker 3: a lot of incoming. And then two, you've felt this before.
Speaker 3: And also what you're feeling is we know how bad
Speaker 3: it can be. The black community knows how bad it
Speaker 3: can be and will be under the trumpet message.
Speaker 2: We have memories, Like you said, we have.
Speaker 3: Memories and they don't they're you know, you all talked
Speaker 3: about this. You know, Dixie was played at that rally.
Speaker 2: On site a black speaker, and.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, I went to the University of Mississippi.
Speaker 3: That song was played when when I was a student there.
Speaker 3: That song was still being played at our sporting events.
Speaker 3: When I was a student there, we still had a
Speaker 3: Confederate mascot. By the time I left, we didn't have
Speaker 3: a Confederate mascot. And I remember we as student organization,
Speaker 3: the Black Student Union, but also the Divine Nine. We
Speaker 3: worked really hard on that. Our strategy honestly became sports.
Speaker 3: We were like, kids don't want to come play sports here.
Speaker 3: Y'all love sports. They don't want to come play sports
Speaker 3: because we got all of this Confederate, this Confederate signia
Speaker 3: insignia around. I remember there was a point we got
Speaker 3: the Confederate mascot to go away, so at that point
Speaker 3: you couldn't have a Confederate flag. We didn't have a
Speaker 3: Confederate mascot. Dixie was still on the table, and we
Speaker 3: had a meeting. I was in law school, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I can't do it all, Like it was really impactful,
Speaker 3: and I get that off the back and the strength
Speaker 3: of everyone else that had worked to get that mask
Speaker 3: out away. I knew those students were going to work
Speaker 3: just as hard when they were in undergrad when they
Speaker 3: were in law school. And five six years later, the
Speaker 3: band doesn't play Dixie anymore. When I heard, because I
Speaker 3: didn't watch the rally, when I heard that they were
Speaker 3: doing that, I'm like, yes, that them playing that song
Speaker 3: was a dog whistle, a very overt dog whistle, but
Speaker 3: it's also a doll whistle to us to be like, now,
Speaker 3: these people are telling us who they are, They're being
Speaker 3: very clear about it. So what are we going to
Speaker 3: do to find if they want to play that at
Speaker 3: Trump events, rally events, if Trump decides that he wants
Speaker 3: to play it at mar A Lago, I don't care,
Speaker 3: but you're not going to play that at my White House.
Speaker 3: You're not going to play that and stand behind my
Speaker 3: presidential podium. And that's what I can control. I can't
Speaker 3: control that he wants to have a rally and people
Speaker 3: will like, actually listen to that song and play. We
Speaker 3: have to focus on what you can control, and we
Speaker 3: can keep him out of White House. We can make
Speaker 3: sure that that song is not ever played at any
Speaker 3: official presidential event. But we can't do that if he's
Speaker 3: the president.
Speaker 4: You know. Unfortunately, some of those tactics are working. Some
Speaker 4: people in our community are being driven to apathy, being
Speaker 4: driven to tapping out, being convinced that their votes don't
Speaker 4: have power. Rams and I hosted a conversation with black
Speaker 4: men here in Arizona. Close to one hundred men came out,
Speaker 4: and one of them stood up and said that our
Speaker 4: votes don't matter. And that was really really discouraging because
Speaker 4: this gentleman was old enough to be our father. But
Speaker 4: he's someone who most likely lived through a lot of
Speaker 4: the progress that has happened for black people in this
Speaker 4: country and has been in a position that he's in
Speaker 4: now where that progress has slowed to the point where
Speaker 4: he's just thrown up his hands, and you know, feels
Speaker 4: like what am I doing this for? You have black
Speaker 4: celebrities using their voice in their platform to discourage us
Speaker 4: from participating, which is a really really confusing thing for
Speaker 4: me and even some who would position themselves black leaders.
Speaker 4: I won't even say his name, because other people have
Speaker 4: a lot more respect for this gentleman than I do.
Speaker 4: You know, telling us don't vote until we get something,
Speaker 4: as if by not participating we'll be able to hold
Speaker 4: the accountability after the fact, after we don't get the
Speaker 4: result that we thought we wanted. A very confusing strategy
Speaker 4: by this supposedly very intelligent black man. Vice President Harris
Speaker 4: is doing something that I think is intelligent and I
Speaker 4: want you.
Speaker 2: To speak to it. She seems to be going after.
Speaker 4: Voters who might be a little bit disenfranchised or a
Speaker 4: little disconnected from the political process, who typically wouldn't participate,
Speaker 4: and even those who might position themselves opposed to her,
Speaker 4: So instead of attacking them, she's reaching out to them.
Speaker 4: Instead of feeling offended by the idea that there's this
Speaker 4: growing the erosion of black men voters that support her.
Speaker 4: Instead of positioning them as uninformed or stupid or her enemy,
Speaker 4: she's saying, no, you're right, I should have to earn
Speaker 4: their votes. So speak about what you've seen. As far
Speaker 4: as her strategy in trying to attract these different sectors
Speaker 4: of voters who might feel a bit disconnected from the
Speaker 4: political process.
Speaker 3: I think it's needed. I mean, I say this as
Speaker 3: a black woman, but also a Southern black woman. You know,
Speaker 3: the Hairs campaign. They have a robust campaign in Mississippi,
Speaker 3: and people might be listening and being like, why Mississippi
Speaker 3: the same reason that she's doing to outreach to black men.
Speaker 3: It is about showing people that I am going to
Speaker 3: be there for you as well. We know, I mean,
Speaker 3: I hope, I always hope that you know, Mississippi will
Speaker 3: be a Georgia and we'll be able to be purple
Speaker 3: or will be able to be blue. But it's a
Speaker 3: very red state. That being said, it has the highest
Speaker 3: population of black voters who get to vote for president.
Speaker 3: Right they're behind DC. But DC doesn't get to vote
Speaker 3: for president. She doesn't have to campaign in Mississippi. She
Speaker 3: doesn't have to run ads in Mississippi. Her numbers are
Speaker 3: probably going to be the same either way. But showing
Speaker 3: people that it does not matter if you if your
Speaker 3: state gets me to the office, I am going to
Speaker 3: be there for you and I'm going to work for you.
Speaker 3: I think that's the signal that you have to have.
Speaker 3: And look, it takes a lot of time to do
Speaker 3: to like have these conversations because they're conversations, right, Like
Speaker 3: I tell folks, I'm happy to come on y'all's podcast
Speaker 3: because we get like an hour to talk about this.
Speaker 3: I'm actually really terrible at knocking on doors and canvassing
Speaker 3: because I'm the kind of person if you if that
Speaker 3: when he stood up and he said that, I am
Speaker 3: the like follow up with you afterwards and be like
Speaker 3: you want to talk about this, you want to talk
Speaker 3: about like very specifically what's happening in your life, and
Speaker 3: like let me you know, I'm an attorney, let me
Speaker 3: present the case of democracy and America. And I'm also
Speaker 3: really honest with black people, especially us. This is all
Speaker 3: we got, y'all, Like this is not no one is
Speaker 3: going to wake up and just be like, you know
Speaker 3: what we have not been good to the black community.
Speaker 3: We should just stop. That's not going to happen. Everything
Speaker 3: that we get is through force and accountability. And to
Speaker 3: your point of this whole idea, what I just won't
Speaker 3: vote and it's like, okay, so how is that going
Speaker 3: to advance what your issue is? And that requires a
Speaker 3: conversation with people, and you have to have these these
Speaker 3: very hard conversations. And I in the South and just
Speaker 3: pronounced in general with the black community, I think we've
Speaker 3: always had a lot of people talk at us and
Speaker 3: what people have no not being used to. But the
Speaker 3: Hairs campaign is doing She's having conversations with us. And
Speaker 3: that's what we have always wanted and honestly, that's what
Speaker 3: we have always deserved, but people hadn't done it. There
Speaker 3: have been people that, you know, I hear people say, well,
Speaker 3: every four years, people keep talking about how important black
Speaker 3: folks are, and then we don't hear from them, we
Speaker 3: don't see them. Tell me break that down, like, where
Speaker 3: have we not shown up for you? Is it because
Speaker 3: we've done a lot, We've forgiven all this student loan
Speaker 3: student loaned it. There are still people who are like, well,
Speaker 3: my loans weren't forgiven because of X or y okay,
Speaker 3: is that the number one issue is that what is
Speaker 3: like making you hesitant about her? Then it is more
Speaker 3: than fair to want to know what is she going
Speaker 3: to do on student loans? How is she going to
Speaker 3: make sure that other people advances. It's a conversation. It's
Speaker 3: not a bumper sticker, and it's not a like a hashtag.
Speaker 3: But what I want people to understand is you have
Speaker 3: to make people give you what you need. It is
Speaker 3: not for us to say or to think it's dangerous
Speaker 3: actually for us to think that if we just remove
Speaker 3: ourselves from the political process, it's going to stop. It's
Speaker 3: going to continue whether we're in it or not. Do
Speaker 3: we want to be leading, do we want people to
Speaker 3: seek us, to court us to want to do the
Speaker 3: things that we need, or do we just want to
Speaker 3: like fall to the back. I'm not a person that
Speaker 3: is going to let other people dictate my life and
Speaker 3: the policies that impact my community. And so I show
Speaker 3: up and I say these are the things that I want,
Speaker 3: and I want them to happen or else. And you
Speaker 3: can see that in other ways, Like in twenty sixteen, y'all,
Speaker 3: we didn't even know the Russians were targeting black votes
Speaker 3: until like a month or two months before the election.
Speaker 3: We immediately were like, we're never doing this again. I
Speaker 3: don't expect that anybody here has seen all the intelligence reports,
Speaker 3: but we make them give us these intelligence reports.
Speaker 2: At Cambridge Analytica. Is that what I'm thinking different?
Speaker 3: That was Cambridge and so what happened. That's a good
Speaker 3: example is they kind of did an after action. So
Speaker 3: we knew, you know, the DNC was hacked that summer,
Speaker 3: there were signs that something was going on, but the
Speaker 3: public announcement that Russia was interfering with our elections that
Speaker 3: didn't come until October of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 3: What we've seen since then is now we get reports
Speaker 3: one hundred days out and we get we are continuing
Speaker 3: to get reports. SBI is continuing to arrest people to
Speaker 3: do these citations. To me, that is progress because one
Speaker 3: of the things that was most harmful and hurtful is
Speaker 3: don't tell Black folks after the fact that we were targets.
Speaker 3: Tell me that I'm being targeting. Don't come and tell
Speaker 3: me after the election that I was targeted, because I
Speaker 3: can't do anything about it. After the election. Those that's
Speaker 3: a love of nuance that requires you to sit down
Speaker 3: and do what Harris has done. She's doing the rounds
Speaker 3: on the podcast. And look, I'm in DC where all
Speaker 3: these people are like now the shade room. What is this?
Speaker 3: Also there's this former football player Shannon Sharp that has
Speaker 3: a podcast. This is new to them. But these are
Speaker 3: the voices that our community has been listening listening.
Speaker 2: To your time.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to make sure that I say something
Speaker 1: to our listeners. Obviously, we have a long standing relationship
Speaker 1: with our listeners, and most of our listeners are understand
Speaker 1: our plight here. But you know, we do our best
Speaker 1: to inform and empower our listeners to make the changes
Speaker 1: in their community. So I want to sort of piggyback
Speaker 1: off of what you said in so far as voting
Speaker 1: is concerned. I think I want to invoke like an
Speaker 1: old adage or an old like saying, it's the squeaky
Speaker 1: wheel that gets the oil. If you make noise, if
Speaker 1: you make yourself visible, then you will get a response,
Speaker 1: certainly more quickly and more intentionally than if you don't.
Speaker 1: To know that we've been targeted is it's kind of
Speaker 1: a hurtful thing, but it's Also, I believe on some
Speaker 1: level it can cause a person to feel stupid, to
Speaker 1: feel that vulnerable, to feel like they've been tricked. And
Speaker 1: a quote that we've resurrected here on the show Qan
Speaker 1: and I. It comes from Mark Twain, but he says
Speaker 1: it's easier to fool a person than to convince a
Speaker 1: person that he has been fooled. And so for pe
Speaker 1: people who might be wrestling with what may go against
Speaker 1: their nature, you know what I mean, Like, in simple terms,
Speaker 1: the election is very simple, right, But people who are
Speaker 1: critical of a potential Harris president, someone who has not
Speaker 1: been the president, comparing her to someone who has actually
Speaker 1: been the president and has lived under that People that
Speaker 1: reduce the benefit of another Trump presidency to a twelve
Speaker 1: hundred dollars check that they think that he gave to them,
Speaker 1: when in fact, it was a Democratic Congress that gave
Speaker 1: them a twelve hundred dollars For those people, those people
Speaker 1: who either would cast their vote the wrong way because
Speaker 1: they have been misinformed and they now feel like, well,
Speaker 1: I've been out loud saying this for so long, I
Speaker 1: have to like stick the landing and vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Or for those other people who say, you know, as
Speaker 1: human and there's an individual who's he used to have
Speaker 1: more respect from us. We do our best not to
Speaker 1: tear down black men on this show or black women,
Speaker 1: so you know, but the fact that the facts are
Speaker 1: the facts, you know what I mean. We have a
Speaker 1: much greater agenda with this show. We built this show
Speaker 1: so that we could uplift black and brown voices and
Speaker 1: empower allies. So that is our first order of business
Speaker 1: for that individual and individuals who think like him that
Speaker 1: you know, just set this vote out and blah blah
Speaker 1: blah whatever.
Speaker 4: I don't know if he had respect from both of us.
Speaker 4: I think he had more respect than he deserved from you. Okay,
Speaker 4: we'll say it that way.
Speaker 1: But for folks that think the way that he thinks,
Speaker 1: you know, again, I want to make sure that you
Speaker 1: take away from this conversation that that squeaky wheel. I
Speaker 1: think that that really works to simplify things.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, for everyone else, I think that
Speaker 2: you know what is next.
Speaker 1: We've had a conversation. We know exactly what we're up against,
Speaker 1: we know exactly how to change it. I know that
Speaker 1: you wanted to circle back to the importance of having
Speaker 1: a democratic Congress. But I think that throughout the conversation
Speaker 1: you've touched on it at many points, and even if
Speaker 1: you hadn't, the contrast is a Trump presidency and a
Speaker 1: far right you know Congress, because you know, that's what
Speaker 1: we end up with with a Trump presidency. My belief
Speaker 1: is that every single vote for a Democratic president pulls
Speaker 1: the entirety of our political system a little bit more
Speaker 1: to the left. Every single vote, even if it doesn't
Speaker 1: ultimately end up electing the president, they do have to
Speaker 1: pay Those on the right have to pay attention to
Speaker 1: those numbers. Hey, these policies were popular, These policies were unpopular.
Speaker 1: If we want to stick the landing on this again,
Speaker 1: we're going to have to back off of this, you know.
Speaker 1: And it moves the entirety of the political system a
Speaker 1: little bit more to the left. And this is sort
Speaker 1: of something that people need to know. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: the same holds true for people on the right, you know.
Speaker 1: To be fair, you know that I don't believe that
Speaker 1: that is really the best version of this country. You know,
Speaker 1: that's very well documented on this show. I'm I'm over
Speaker 1: there left, like I'm like throw a rock. That's how
Speaker 1: left I am, but you know, just to be fair,
Speaker 1: I believe that that is the subtle influence that even
Speaker 1: an individual vote can have on the entirety of a
Speaker 1: nation's political agenda. And so for a person to say
Speaker 1: that they do not want to vote because they don't
Speaker 1: think it counts, it's it's a drop in the ocean. Well,
Speaker 1: the ocean is made up of a lot of drops.
Speaker 1: That's how you get an ocean. And you know, your
Speaker 1: drop is just as valuable as any other drop.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to make sure that we impart
Speaker 1: these things because the stakes are so high, as Q
Speaker 1: mentioned and as everyone knows.
Speaker 2: And we don't get to really have as.
Speaker 1: Many conversations with our listeners before election day because there
Speaker 1: are not as many opportunities, not there's not as much
Speaker 1: time as there once was, And so folks that are
Speaker 1: kind of at that last little, that critical moment of
Speaker 1: deciding whether or not they want to actually follow through
Speaker 1: on what they've said or didn't say or whatever. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to add on to your words of wisdom,
Speaker 1: you know, some of our own, just as a kind
Speaker 1: of a final thought here, I'm not going to leave
Speaker 1: us with simply that because I know that this is
Speaker 1: an ongoing mission for you.
Speaker 2: This is as you mentioned, you live in this space.
Speaker 2: You know how.
Speaker 1: To dissect information and interpret data, and indeed you can
Speaker 1: share that with people who you know this is of
Speaker 1: interest to them.
Speaker 2: You can inspire other black people.
Speaker 1: You know, young black people, because you know, obviously we
Speaker 1: need to think about you know what comes next, and
Speaker 1: and you know the next generation coming up behind you.
Speaker 2: And I know full well that you're an inspiration certainly
Speaker 2: art of the both of us. That's a fact.
Speaker 1: So what we want to do in this moment is
Speaker 1: ask you to leave our listeners with some connective tissue,
Speaker 1: website article, you mentioned, your book, social media, all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff, so that people can tap into your
Speaker 1: ecosystem and continue to be fed by this brilliant mind
Speaker 1: of yours.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. I am hyper aware that this is
Speaker 3: one of the last times that your listeners are going
Speaker 3: to hear from you all before the final day of voting,
Speaker 3: and so I appreciate that you all share time with
Speaker 3: me because I am also on that timeline. Yes, how
Speaker 3: do I have this conversation with as many people as possible?
Speaker 3: So thank y'all for being so gracious. I will say
Speaker 3: leaving for people, you should do what is going to
Speaker 3: help you today? When people say they're not going to vote,
Speaker 3: I ask them, how is that going to help you today?
Speaker 3: And I think it really catches people. It like makes
Speaker 3: people take a step back because it is something to
Speaker 3: be said to be in a place where you don't
Speaker 3: think anything will change, But then what are you doing
Speaker 3: to change it? And so when you and you should
Speaker 3: vote for the person who's going to help you the
Speaker 3: most today. And I tell folks you should never feel
Speaker 3: I don't care if you have been out here at
Speaker 3: the MAGA rallies, if you have been like Trump or
Speaker 3: nobody every day since he lost in twenty twenty, you
Speaker 3: go in that voting booth and you vote for who
Speaker 3: is going to help you the most today if in
Speaker 3: four years from now that is the Republican Party. Because
Speaker 3: you are a billionaire and you have made it big.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to squash on your dreams or what
Speaker 3: your aspirations are, but who is going to make sure
Speaker 3: that you can get that loan from the bank to
Speaker 3: start that business. Who is going to make sure that
Speaker 3: you get a child tax credit so that you have
Speaker 3: extra money to put toward that billion dollar business. It's
Speaker 3: nothing wrong with us voting in our self interest, especially
Speaker 3: when someone is telling you, which is what Trump is doing,
Speaker 3: that he is going to do everything that is in
Speaker 3: his best interest, So do what's in your best interest.
Speaker 3: In my best interest is for Harris to be president.
Speaker 3: That is my livelihood. I'm terrified. I remember all of us, remember,
Speaker 3: especially black men, Remember how much targeting was happening under
Speaker 3: the Trump administration, and when he just empowered people to
Speaker 3: openly hate us and openly attack us and openly surveil us.
Speaker 3: In terms of where we have these conversations, I tell folks,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not in the government right now, which
Speaker 3: is why I can come on your show and be
Speaker 3: a little bit more open and have a different kind
Speaker 3: of conversation than other folks can. But most of my writing,
Speaker 3: the things that I'm talking about, when I'm talking about
Speaker 3: these things are on LinkedIn. People should connect with me
Speaker 3: on LinkedIn. I will say I was perusing you all
Speaker 3: social media. I want to prepare people. My social media
Speaker 3: does not a little like y'all's. But I write about
Speaker 3: these things, and I talk about these things there, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to keep talking about this post election and
Speaker 3: it is. It's not something that other people will do.
Speaker 3: But what I'm asking people is to give us a chance.
Speaker 3: Like I don't have a chance in the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: Y'all don't have representation in the Trump administry. I am
Speaker 3: not the kind of person that's like, if Trump wins,
Speaker 3: I'm moving to Canada, I'm going back to the mother Inland,
Speaker 3: to Africa. No, I'm going to be here. But give
Speaker 3: me a chance to help our community. We cannot do
Speaker 3: that when he is in office. He does not care
Speaker 3: about us. And I could be fine with him not
Speaker 3: caring about us, but he takes it a step further.
Speaker 3: He attacks us m H Like I am not safe.
Speaker 3: You are not safe, your family is not safe. And
Speaker 3: I would love for people to vote from a place
Speaker 3: of empowerment and optimism, but at a minimum, just help
Speaker 3: yourself and protect yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that those are about as profound of
Speaker 1: you know, words of wisdom as as we could hope for.
Speaker 1: I want to, you know, thank you for your you know,
Speaker 1: your time and the work that you've done and the
Speaker 1: work that you're doing doing.
Speaker 2: It is special and.
Speaker 1: Rare, and I know that there's a lot that goes
Speaker 1: into it on the back end, and so that's, you know,
Speaker 1: another reason why it's so special.
Speaker 2: It probably takes.
Speaker 1: A lifetime of courage and bravery and brilliance to even
Speaker 1: get to the point where you're able to articulate things
Speaker 1: like this to people like us, and we could not
Speaker 1: know the scope of your story or the amount of
Speaker 1: effort and resiliency that has gone into it. So, you know,
Speaker 1: we've said this before on the show, but you know,
Speaker 1: this is the platform where you come and we say
Speaker 1: to you black woman, that we are proud of you,
Speaker 1: and we appreciate the work that you are doing. We
Speaker 1: you know, wherever you have to go next and wherever
Speaker 1: you were earlier. You know, they might not say it
Speaker 1: on ABC News, they might not say it at the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, but.
Speaker 2: We will say it here. We're so proud of you.
Speaker 1: It's an honor to talk to you, and this is
Speaker 1: something that we hope that we will get to do
Speaker 1: more and more in the future. So again, thank you
Speaker 1: once again. Today's guest is Nicole Tisdale, a national security
Speaker 1: attorney with a career including roles at the White House
Speaker 1: National Security Council, the US Congress's House Committee on Homeland Security,
Speaker 1: and the twenty twenty Biden Harris transition.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank y'all,