Speaker 1: Wake that answer up in the morning club.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the world most dangerous morning show to Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2: Charlamagne the God just hilarious. DJ Envy is not here today,
Speaker 2: but we got a very special guest. The vice chairman
Speaker 2: of the DNC and the co founder of the March
Speaker 2: for Our Lives, David Hodge is here.
Speaker 1: It is like the pig.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I always see the two gs, and I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's Hodge alcohol.
Speaker 1: Good to see you man.
Speaker 2: You know, I really appreciate a lot of the things
Speaker 2: that you've been doing because you are challenging the democratic establishment,
Speaker 2: and I just think we need more of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I certainly agree.
Speaker 4: I think the fact of the matter is right now,
Speaker 4: we have seen last election, we lost voting share with
Speaker 4: nearly every single demographic out there, and we also lost
Speaker 4: against Donald Trump of all people. Right, And if that's
Speaker 4: not a sign that we need to dramatically change, I
Speaker 4: don't know what is. So that's really what we're out
Speaker 4: here trying to do is help to elevate a new
Speaker 4: generation and also make sure that nobody feels like, you know,
Speaker 4: that they can just be in their position of power forever,
Speaker 4: because ultimately the democracy last I checked, right, and it's
Speaker 4: about making sure that we have the best representation possible
Speaker 4: in every district.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like the democratic establishment uses young activists
Speaker 2: as mascots more than partners.
Speaker 4: Certainly, at times it can't happen. I mean, I know
Speaker 4: for a fact when I started running for this position,
Speaker 4: you know, there were people who were certainly resistant who
Speaker 4: I ended up talking to a lot of the time.
Speaker 4: That was actually one of my favorite parts about running
Speaker 4: for this position, because when you're running to be a
Speaker 4: vice chair, you have to call people and obviously earn
Speaker 4: their vote, and one of my favorite parts about it
Speaker 4: was talking to the people who at first did not
Speaker 4: want to vote for me at all. I mean, there
Speaker 4: was one person who I talked to who actually said,
Speaker 4: in one of my first calls that I made to
Speaker 4: ask for the support, that I'd never talked to this
Speaker 4: person before this that said that I should not do this.
Speaker 4: I cannot win, and that there was absolutely no pathway
Speaker 4: to victory for me, and that they would not vote
Speaker 4: for me. That was the first call that I had,
Speaker 4: very welcoming, right But what I said to them was like,
Speaker 4: I understand that you're not in a position where you
Speaker 4: feel like you're not gonna be able to suppor me,
Speaker 4: But ultimately I care a lot about the constituency group
Speaker 4: that you represent, so I want to keep talking to
Speaker 4: you because even if you don't vote for me, I
Speaker 4: do care about what you care about. And ultimately they
Speaker 4: ended up coming around and supporting me and being a
Speaker 4: huge supporter as well.
Speaker 2: And you were a survivor of the Parkland shooting, with
Speaker 2: that would spark you know, the thought to get into politics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean before this, I wanted to be a
Speaker 4: journalist because I wanted to scare the crap out of
Speaker 4: politicians that I thought were corrupt as hell and didn't
Speaker 4: do anything. Ultimately, but I realized after Parkland, when my
Speaker 4: classmates and I mobilized. For people that may not remember,
Speaker 4: we had one of the largest school shootings in American
Speaker 4: history happen at my high school in Parkland, and my
Speaker 4: classmates and I were obviously devastated after that, but I
Speaker 4: would say just as much as that we were furious
Speaker 4: because we grew up hearing from our politicians their thoughts
Speaker 4: and prayers over and over again after these shootings, but
Speaker 4: they weren't really doing anything right.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 4: I think I was in middle school when Sandy Hook happened.
Speaker 4: I wasn't even alive when Columbine happened.
Speaker 3: That's how long this has been going on for.
Speaker 4: And we went out there and we didn't say go
Speaker 4: out and vote for Democrats or Republicans necessarily. We said,
Speaker 4: go out and vote for more religis leaders that represent
Speaker 4: you and your values right. And what we saw was
Speaker 4: one of the largest youth photo turnouts in American history.
Speaker 4: We took back the House. And what we saw as
Speaker 4: well is after Parkland, we didn't go out there, even
Speaker 4: though there was a lot of the polsters and consultants
Speaker 4: and pundits that brought the Democratic Party to the place
Speaker 4: that it is right now, who told us, no, you
Speaker 4: can't talk about taking on the NRA, the organization that
Speaker 4: stops these gun laws from changing a lot of the time, insanely,
Speaker 4: you can't talk about banning assault weapons because that's too unpopular.
Speaker 4: Because this is Florida, it's a Republican state. Gun laws
Speaker 4: get weaker here because we did the opposite of what
Speaker 4: all those purported experts told us to do. We actually
Speaker 4: did change gun laws in Florida.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you're not fixing the problem if you don't
Speaker 1: go after.
Speaker 4: Exactly, you have to address it. And because of that,
Speaker 4: we raised the aged buy a gun to twenty one.
Speaker 4: For context of the shoot at my high school. He couldn't
Speaker 4: buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer because he
Speaker 4: wasn't twenty one yet, but he could purchase an AR fifteen.
Speaker 4: And then we passed a red flag law that can
Speaker 4: disarm people that are risked themselves and others. That has
Speaker 4: been used over nineteen thousand times in the state of
Speaker 4: Florida to disarm people that, for example, threaten to shoot
Speaker 4: up a high school or harm their intimate partner, you know,
Speaker 4: and thousands of lives have been saved from that. And
Speaker 4: what I learned from that experience is that it's actually
Speaker 4: summed up well by Dolores Erta, who I asked one
Speaker 4: time at a protest. She's a major civil rights activist
Speaker 4: obviously and later in the farm workers who have been
Speaker 4: amazing person. I asked her, what is the most important
Speaker 4: thing that you need to tell any young person or
Speaker 4: activist that wants to make change that they need to know?
Speaker 4: And what she said to me is it doesn't matter
Speaker 4: whether or not the change is actually possible. It's whether
Speaker 4: or not you can make people believe that the change
Speaker 4: is possible more than anything. And that's what we did
Speaker 4: after Parklyn, and I think what we're trying to do
Speaker 4: now is take that generation of young people who have
Speaker 4: been let down in so many ways by their political system,
Speaker 4: whether it's through gun violence inside of school or outside
Speaker 4: of school, whether it's the housing crisis, the student debt crisis,
Speaker 4: are so much more, and show them that there's a
Speaker 4: new generation of people coming in. What are people like
Speaker 4: Congressman Maxwell Frost. I don't know if you know this person.
Speaker 4: He is the youngest member of Congress. He started he
Speaker 4: was working for March for Our Lives while I was
Speaker 4: in college, and he called me up and he said
Speaker 4: he wanted to run for Congress. And I said, that's awesome,
Speaker 4: But you know you're twenty four, right, You have to
Speaker 4: be twenty five to get elected to Congress. And Maxwell,
Speaker 4: do you know he didn't come from some super fancy background.
Speaker 4: His parents aren't super wealthy or anything like that. He's
Speaker 4: just a normal person. And when he was running, he
Speaker 4: had to uber drive from nine pm to two am
Speaker 4: every night while running for Congress, and he was running
Speaker 4: against two former members of Congress, one of whom was
Speaker 4: a headge fund manager while they were a member of Congress.
Speaker 4: Not a conflict of interest at all, right, And then
Speaker 4: the other one had committed tax run while they were
Speaker 4: in Congress. And Maxwell's written off by the establishment so much.
Speaker 4: They said, you know, he's a great person, but he
Speaker 4: can't win. He can't raise that kind of money. And
Speaker 4: we helped him raise. I helped him raise about four
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars in his first two quarters. But the
Speaker 4: thing is the most important thing that somebody needs to
Speaker 4: run for office is the will, the grit, and the
Speaker 4: determination to get elected. But they also need a substantial
Speaker 4: amount of fun in order to get elected. And far
Speaker 4: too many young people with that griten determination struggle to
Speaker 4: get there. And that's why we do what we do
Speaker 4: with leaders we deserve. Because Maxwell ended up with that
Speaker 4: determination and that support, becoming the youngest member of Congress,
Speaker 4: that helps us pearhead an effort to get the Biden
Speaker 4: administration to aggress to address gun violence in a more
Speaker 4: substantial manner. And shortly after I graduated from college, I
Speaker 4: found myself sitting in the rose Garden at the White
Speaker 4: House with Congressman Maxwell Frost, who I had just I
Speaker 4: literally hired from my freshman dorm room, introducing the President
Speaker 4: of the United States to create something called the Office
Speaker 4: of Gun Violence Prevention that helped coordinate the federal government's
Speaker 4: response to gun violence. And they oversaw about a twenty
Speaker 4: five percent reduction in gun homicides over the course of
Speaker 4: about three years from that work. And that's because the
Speaker 4: pressure that Maxwell helped to put on. But imagine if
Speaker 4: we had thirty Maxwell's in Congress.
Speaker 5: David, going back to the shooting, you were just seventeen
Speaker 5: when that happened, right, and I can only imagine, like,
Speaker 5: what was I know you said you guys were furious,
Speaker 5: But what is something from that day? What do you
Speaker 5: remember most about that data sticks with you today?
Speaker 4: I think what I remember most was just the sense
Speaker 4: of anger that I had at what had happened. But
Speaker 4: it was more righteous indignation, kind of like the injustice
Speaker 4: of what had happened. Because I had spent the past
Speaker 4: four years in my speech and debate classes, studying, you know,
Speaker 4: arguing about gun control, for example, and having to argue
Speaker 4: on both sides of it, both for and against it.
Speaker 4: You don't get to decide which side you're arguing on,
Speaker 4: you have to argue on both. And I was frustrated
Speaker 4: because I felt like I maybe myself and my classmates
Speaker 4: could have done something before this because of what we
Speaker 4: knew from that education that we did it, that could
Speaker 4: have potentially prevented it. So that's a lot of what
Speaker 4: I think about, and of course, to the fear that
Speaker 4: one has when my sister was just fourteen years old
Speaker 4: that day and she lost four friends, that's really what
Speaker 4: I was thinking about. Was for the first time in
Speaker 4: my life, I I, you know, there wasn't anything that
Speaker 4: I could do to help my sister feel better other
Speaker 4: than to try to stop this from happening to other people.
Speaker 4: And that sense of helplessness is really what I hold
Speaker 4: on to. But I also remember that the friendship and
Speaker 4: camaraderie that my classmates and I and the parents and
Speaker 4: teachers and other people that we worked with had in
Speaker 4: order to hold these politicians' feet to the fire. Because
Speaker 4: if there's anything that I learned from that experience, when
Speaker 4: I originally went out and started talking about it, I
Speaker 4: wasn't doing it as an activist. I was doing it
Speaker 4: as a journalist because I wanted to talk about what
Speaker 4: happened that day. But I soon realized it wasn't gonna
Speaker 4: be enough to do that, because you can't just talk
Speaker 4: about what's wrong. Yeah, you got to make it better
Speaker 4: and say what needs to be done right and journalists
Speaker 4: often can't do that. And what's an even better way
Speaker 4: of scaring? I like to say, Charlaine, the the only
Speaker 4: good politician is a scared politician that is afraid of
Speaker 4: losing their job rightly. And we need a lot more
Speaker 4: of that. And what's a lot better to do a
Speaker 4: lot better of a way of doing that than just
Speaker 4: writing a bad story is running somebody against them or
Speaker 4: having a massive jet youth voter turnout that helps to
Speaker 4: defeat the NRA. And that's just what my generation did
Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen. People told us, you young people are great,
Speaker 4: you're really inspirational, but you don't vote, that's the problem.
Speaker 4: And we said, okay, watch us. So we did, and
Speaker 4: we ended up defeating more NRAY backed incumbents in the
Speaker 4: US House than ever before in American history. And in
Speaker 4: the time sense, we actually passed just fu' all day,
Speaker 4: the first federal gun law in thirty years as well.
Speaker 4: And it's not nowhere near enough. There are still people
Speaker 4: every day that live in fear of gun violence, students
Speaker 4: that live in fear of gun violence. And let we
Speaker 4: have to be clear too, what happened in Parkland is
Speaker 4: horrifying and should never happen again. But most of the
Speaker 4: young people that are dying from gun violence aren't dying
Speaker 4: in school, and they aren't getting nearly enough attention. And
Speaker 4: we need to make sure that we're providing a holistic
Speaker 4: solution so that kids don't feel in danger on their
Speaker 4: way to school or inside of their classroom at the
Speaker 4: same time. But not only just focus on one or
Speaker 4: the other, but focus effectively on both.
Speaker 2: Have you encountered more resistance from Democrats or Republicans when
Speaker 2: trying to push real.
Speaker 3: Reform in which sense in terms of reform just a
Speaker 3: reform period.
Speaker 4: I mean, honestly, I think a lot of the challenge
Speaker 4: is that, I think the resource that our party lacks
Speaker 4: more than anything, it's not cash. We certainly are good
Speaker 4: at raising money, right The resource that we lack is courage.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, I.
Speaker 2: Agree, I think that's the one strategy Democrats have not tried.
Speaker 4: And exactly what kills me about that is that think
Speaker 4: about all the most prolific things that our party has
Speaker 4: helped to usher in in the past, right, whether it's
Speaker 4: the social security system, right, Medicaid, or Medicare, which now
Speaker 4: are getting cut, of course, in part because some of
Speaker 4: our members of Congress literally passed away in office and
Speaker 4: that vote very likely would not have gone through.
Speaker 3: That just went through.
Speaker 4: That is going to cut billions of dollars in funding
Speaker 4: from medicaid and so much much more. And what I think,
Speaker 4: what I'm always coming back to is what those people
Speaker 4: said to us after Parkland, which is, you can't talk
Speaker 4: about this because it's too bold, it's too out there,
Speaker 4: it's too much. You need to add, you need to
Speaker 4: be very incremental.
Speaker 1: Who was saying that Democrats are bold?
Speaker 4: I mean it was a lot of polsters and consultants
Speaker 4: and other people on the Democratic side saying, you don't understand, Uh,
Speaker 4: this is too controversial, you can't push for this. What
Speaker 4: we did, though, is because we actually spoke authentically about
Speaker 4: what we actually believed and went out there and said
Speaker 4: this is what needs to happen. We got Republicans in
Speaker 4: our state, which was a Republican trifecta on the defense,
Speaker 4: and we changed gun laws and saved lives. But imagine
Speaker 4: if we didn't have that courage. Imagine if we listen
Speaker 4: to those people that said that we can't over and
Speaker 4: over again.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: I think part of the reason why I would say
Speaker 4: one of the last times that we were the strongest
Speaker 4: as a party was shortly after Barack Obama was elected.
Speaker 4: And I think part of the reason we had such
Speaker 4: a massive wave wasn't just because of the recession that
Speaker 4: we just went through, but it was because it wasn't
Speaker 4: because he had a message of we can't. We can
Speaker 4: exactly And that is the most powerful force that we
Speaker 4: need to tap into. Is we need to reignite the
Speaker 4: American people's vision of what kind of country we could
Speaker 4: be ultimately right, and not just talk about how we're
Speaker 4: against Donald Trump, of course we are, but talk about
Speaker 4: what are we trying to build as an alternative right.
Speaker 4: And what I think about is, Alex Charlatanne, I'm not
Speaker 4: a Democrat because I think that we're God's greatest gift
Speaker 4: or we're perfect by any means, right, It's because I
Speaker 4: believe in the party that we can be, and I
Speaker 4: believe in what we have done as a party in
Speaker 4: those moments when we did have courage, when we passed
Speaker 4: the Affordable Care Act so that people didn't get kicked
Speaker 4: off their insurance for a pre existing condition. That's why
Speaker 4: my father, when he got diagnosed with early on said
Speaker 4: Parkinson's disease, didn't get kicked off in his insurance. And
Speaker 4: then my family didn't go bankrupt because we had the
Speaker 4: Social Security system that he paid into throughout his life
Speaker 4: to support him and his family should he get the
Speaker 4: unfortunate consequences of having a life altering thing like that.
Speaker 4: But what I also think about is how I ended
Speaker 4: up in Parkland in the first place. And that's because
Speaker 4: when my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's and faced an
Speaker 4: early medical retirement, we very likely wouldn't be able to
Speaker 4: continue to afford to live in California, where we lived
Speaker 4: at the time, because of the housing crisis out there.
Speaker 4: That's not because of Republicans, right, That's because of Democrats.
Speaker 4: And then we moved to Florida, and I loved the
Speaker 4: consequences of Republicans failure to address gun safety. So I
Speaker 4: want to make sure that not only are we defeating Republicans,
Speaker 4: but we're not just defeating them to defeat them, but
Speaker 4: we're actually doing something with that power to address the
Speaker 4: housing crisis, to address gun violence, and ensure just more recently,
Speaker 4: when my dad passed last September, I'm sorry to thank you.
Speaker 4: When my dad passed last September, I was reminded of
Speaker 4: how much more work we have to do because when
Speaker 4: he was on his deathbed, despite being a Navy helicopter
Speaker 4: pilot with full VA benefits and a medically retired FBI agent,
Speaker 4: his cost of care monthly for at home care was
Speaker 4: nineteen thousand dollars a month. I had to make a
Speaker 4: spreadsheet to figure out how long my family could afford
Speaker 4: to keep my dad alive despite all of those things.
Speaker 4: And the only reason why we didn't go bankrupt is
Speaker 4: because he did not live long enough for that to happen.
Speaker 4: And that is an impossible decision that no person in
Speaker 4: this country should have to make between caring for a
Speaker 4: loved one or going bankrupt, or paying for heat or
Speaker 4: paying for insulin, or getting a college degree or not
Speaker 4: having a lifetime of debt, for example. That's why I'm
Speaker 4: a Democrat, because I know the power of what can
Speaker 4: happen when we do have courage, when we fight for
Speaker 4: what we actually believe in, and we don't just cower
Speaker 4: and say no, we need to do this tiny incremental
Speaker 4: thing when hundreds of millions of people are struggling around
Speaker 4: the country right now.
Speaker 2: Do you think Democrats are afraid of upsetting wealthy donors
Speaker 2: even when the issue is life or death like gun reform.
Speaker 4: When it comes to gun reform, I don't think the
Speaker 4: issue is necessarily wealthy donors, To be honest with you,
Speaker 4: I think that there certainly are conflicts with that. I
Speaker 4: think the bigger issue that I look at is the
Speaker 4: fact that we have corporations that are literally giving money
Speaker 4: to our politics, that are directly incentivized not to address
Speaker 4: the broken healthcare system for example, right that are directly
Speaker 4: incentivized to not do all kinds of things that the
Speaker 4: American people need. We need our government to fight against
Speaker 4: special interests, not be in bed with special interests. That's
Speaker 4: why our candidates, when we support them, leaders we deserve,
Speaker 4: and the funding that we get to support our candidates,
Speaker 4: we get funding from two hundred thousand people around the
Speaker 4: country with an average donation of twenty two dollars. We
Speaker 4: don't take money from corporations, and our candidates they don't
Speaker 4: take money from corporations either, and we say to them
Speaker 4: as well, if you take money from corporations, we will
Speaker 4: find a different young person to run against you, and
Speaker 4: we will primary you to hold you accountable because we
Speaker 4: have to reform the campaign finance system, because ultimately that
Speaker 4: is the thing that is keeping all these issues exists,
Speaker 4: making them exist at the same time, because ultimately, these
Speaker 4: politicians are able to stay in their positions of power
Speaker 4: because they continue to get funding from the NA, They
Speaker 4: continue to get funding from all these special interests. That
Speaker 4: stops from making progress and having the courage to adjust
Speaker 4: those most substantial issues in the first place.
Speaker 2: Let me ask a question, David, at what moment did
Speaker 2: you realize you were more of a threat than an
Speaker 2: asset to democratic leadership.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say that, I would say that I'm still
Speaker 4: an asset because I would say that this much is true,
Speaker 4: right if you were in democratic leadership. I kind of
Speaker 4: have a strange metaphor for this. But if you're in
Speaker 4: democratic leadership, it's kind of like being the coach of
Speaker 4: a baseball team, right, Like, sure, could you go out
Speaker 4: against a group of fifth graders and hit a home run? Absolutely,
Speaker 4: But Ultimately, if you can't get other people on base,
Speaker 4: right because they can't even swing the bat. Sometimes it's
Speaker 4: not a matter of what type of bat they're using,
Speaker 4: it's a matter of can they swing to actually get
Speaker 4: on base in the first place, And it's a matter
Speaker 4: of getting new players. Ultimately, it's not a matter of, oh,
Speaker 4: can we just do more and more training. And I
Speaker 4: think what we need to do more of in our
Speaker 4: own party is, yes, we have to fight back to
Speaker 4: defeat Republicans, but we also need to give people something
Speaker 4: true and authentic to vote for. Where we're showing people
Speaker 4: how the reason you vote for us isn't just so
Speaker 4: that we have a majority, it's so that we use
Speaker 4: our majority to help you, right, Because if we stuck
Speaker 4: with that politics of cowardice, we never would have passed
Speaker 4: the Affordable Care Act in the first place. We never
Speaker 4: would have passed so many of the most monumental pieces
Speaker 4: of legislation then now are helping one hundreds of millions
Speaker 4: Americans around the country. So, of course there are challenges
Speaker 4: with democratic leadership. But what I would say is, especially
Speaker 4: in the case of somebody like a King Jeffreys, let's
Speaker 4: get him the majority, so we can see what he
Speaker 4: can actually do with that majority in the first place.
Speaker 2: He's not going to do anything I can see. Here's
Speaker 2: the thing, and I treat it like anything else. Right,
Speaker 2: Like you know how they say money doesn't change you,
Speaker 2: It just it just multiplies.
Speaker 1: Whatever you already are.
Speaker 2: More power is not going to change these people. If
Speaker 2: you're a coward with no power, you're going to be
Speaker 2: a coward with power. We've seen plenty of Democrats who
Speaker 2: have power who are still cowards.
Speaker 1: A game ain't gonna do nothing different with power.
Speaker 4: Well, I think if we I think if we have
Speaker 4: the right people elected that are out there, are going
Speaker 4: to be able. Ultimately, sometimes it's not a matter of
Speaker 4: what you want to do when you have to get
Speaker 4: elected to those positions within the House. For example, if
Speaker 4: we get more people elected that are saying no, this
Speaker 4: is not enough, we have to fight harder that we're
Speaker 4: we're not just going to stick in our positions of
Speaker 4: power forever, and we're going to say to you, for example,
Speaker 4: that if we're going to vote for you, this is
Speaker 4: what we want to see. Because obviously he has to
Speaker 4: be elected to be the majority speaker of the House.
Speaker 4: By having some of them some more of those young
Speaker 4: people that are on the front lines of these issues
Speaker 4: of addressing that I know in those internal deliberations that
Speaker 4: it's not so much a matter of what he wants
Speaker 4: to do, It's more a matter of if he wants
Speaker 4: to get elected. He is going to have to be
Speaker 4: able to fight harder, and I know that those young
Speaker 4: people will push him to do that, and if they
Speaker 4: feel like he's not going to, then they won't vote
Speaker 4: for it.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been directly wanted by anyone in the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party to stan you leem? I'm like, I'm talking
Speaker 2: like I know some people say things publicly, but like
Speaker 2: behind the scenes, have they like, really right.
Speaker 1: There?
Speaker 4: Certainly are our real challenges so the work that we
Speaker 4: are doing. But I'm not going to let that stop me.
Speaker 4: You know, I wouldn't say necessarily that it's like somebody
Speaker 4: is directly coming to me and saying if you don't
Speaker 4: stop this, this is going to happen to you, or
Speaker 4: something like that. But they that's not how a lot
Speaker 4: of these things work inside of DC. A lot of
Speaker 4: the time, it's not necessarily necessarily an overt threat. It
Speaker 4: is saying it is essentially a tacit threat that we
Speaker 4: hear a lot of the time knowing that if X
Speaker 4: thing happens, then why could happen to you?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Why not call it out? Though? Why not?
Speaker 4: Because ultimately it is what I care more about is
Speaker 4: when there are people that go against me, whether it
Speaker 4: was for example, in the vice chair race, I know
Speaker 4: the power for my own work and gun violence prevention
Speaker 4: of being a bigger person working towards victory. And ultimately,
Speaker 4: when you do that, a lot of those people start
Speaker 4: to come around. Because a lot of the time in DC,
Speaker 4: we have a lot of wind socks that go just
Speaker 4: whichever way the wind is blowing, right, whichever side that
Speaker 4: they think is going to win. And I believe in
Speaker 4: the politics of being able to reconcile those differences and
Speaker 4: work together despite what people say. Because what's even more powerful,
Speaker 4: Charlot Mane, is that when when somebody comes out and
Speaker 4: tries to go overtly against you, right, and they know
Speaker 4: that they did that to you, but they see that
Speaker 4: you start to win, and that's ultimately what they care
Speaker 4: most about. Then if you don't go out there and
Speaker 4: start calling them out publicly, one it's not nearly as divisive,
Speaker 4: and two, it shows that you're trying to be a
Speaker 4: real leader, and ultimately they oftentimes feel guilty about it
Speaker 4: and they want him try to make up for it
Speaker 4: by working to help you because they want to be
Speaker 4: on the side of winning, and ultimately that's what we're
Speaker 4: trying to do here.
Speaker 3: If that makes sense.
Speaker 5: How do you respond to people to say that your
Speaker 5: work is too political?
Speaker 1: And what could you?
Speaker 3: Could you elaborate a little bit?
Speaker 5: I mean, because you know, obviously, like to the point
Speaker 5: that he said, how.
Speaker 2: Like you don't really Yeah, you don't like you're you're
Speaker 2: doing this for selfish reasons and not because you actually
Speaker 2: care about you know, the whole party if they advance
Speaker 2: your political career.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, So what I'll say.
Speaker 4: When I was eighteen, I said that I wanted to
Speaker 4: run for Congress because I thought that would be the
Speaker 4: best way to make change. But I realized when I
Speaker 4: was working with people like Maxwell and other young people
Speaker 4: around the country how hard it is to raise money
Speaker 4: and get the resources to get elected. Because of course,
Speaker 4: courage is that resource that we lack the most. But
Speaker 4: those courageous people they need cash in.
Speaker 3: Order to get elected.
Speaker 4: And I could be one person myself to go out
Speaker 4: there and maybe I get elected to Congress, but ultimately,
Speaker 4: what is more, what is going to be more beneficial
Speaker 4: for the future right One, I often do get physically threatened,
Speaker 4: not necessarily by Democrats, necessarily by any means, but by
Speaker 4: a lot of people who don't agree with the things
Speaker 4: that I say about strengthening gun laws. My family and
Speaker 4: I we got probably over a thousand death threats after
Speaker 4: the shooting, I would say, between online and directly in
Speaker 4: the mill. My house got swatted as well. And what
Speaker 4: I frankly have to think about is that I can't
Speaker 4: just be one person doing this right, And there's a
Speaker 4: whole movement of people out there that are doing this,
Speaker 4: a whole movement of young people that have gone through
Speaker 4: these school shootings. And what I want to help do
Speaker 4: is I don't want to just be one vote that's
Speaker 4: out there. I want to help bring in a generation
Speaker 4: that is truly representative of our generation and not just
Speaker 4: what you know, somebody who's able to raise as much
Speaker 4: money as possible to get elected looks like. And that's
Speaker 4: what we're trying to do with this is look at
Speaker 4: all the candidates that we supported last cycle, where we
Speaker 4: helped to elect the youngest person and the Georgia Legislature. Ever,
Speaker 4: it's a seventh grade algebra teacher, right. Look at the
Speaker 4: person who we elected, Dante Pittman in North Carolina, who
Speaker 4: helped to break the Republican supermajority out there. Look at
Speaker 4: people like Nadarius Clark in Virginia who broke the Republican
Speaker 4: majority in the House and help pass all this stuff.
Speaker 4: So the reason why I'm doing this is because I
Speaker 4: want to help bring in I don't want to just
Speaker 4: walk through that door myself and close it behind me.
Speaker 4: I don't want to just keep the door open. I
Speaker 4: want to take the door off the damn hinges and
Speaker 4: enable it so that future young people don't need to
Speaker 4: have the door held open for them in the first place.
Speaker 4: What they need to do that, though, is they need
Speaker 4: the funding to get elected and make sure that they
Speaker 4: have their right value so that they're able to reform
Speaker 4: our campaign finance system. Because what I look at this
Speaker 4: as ultimately is an insurance policy for the gun safety movement.
Speaker 4: Where President Biden's generation, they didn't go through school shooter drills,
Speaker 4: but they went through a different type of drill. They
Speaker 4: went through nuclear bomb drills, and they went on to
Speaker 4: pass some of the largest arms reduction treaties in human
Speaker 4: history to limit those nuclear weapons. And I think that's
Speaker 4: important because they felt the anxiety of what it was
Speaker 4: like to be told by your government just hide on
Speaker 4: your desk to survive a nuclear bomb and the epic
Speaker 4: failure of leadership that that is. And I believe for
Speaker 4: the difference from our generation is that the bomb is
Speaker 4: going off multiple times a year, absolutely right, So let's
Speaker 4: get them elected so that they can lead, like Congressman
Speaker 4: Frost boldly on this instead of me just being one vote,
Speaker 4: because it isn't about me. It's about our generation and
Speaker 4: the story of are we going to continue having conversations
Speaker 4: like this in the future where school shootings remain in
Speaker 4: the headlines, and gun violence remains in the head lines,
Speaker 4: and so many issues that we should not have to
Speaker 4: deal with in the richest country in human history remain
Speaker 4: in the headlines, or we're going to leave them where
Speaker 4: they belong in history books.
Speaker 2: Give me some other names, because you know you keep
Speaker 2: mentioning in Maxwell Frost, who do you think is the
Speaker 2: voice of the Democratic Party, or who do you think
Speaker 2: should be the voice of the Democratic Party, Or is
Speaker 2: there multiple voices.
Speaker 4: Well, I think one there's going to be multiple voices, right.
Speaker 4: I think one of the great things about our party
Speaker 4: that also creates some challenges is, look, we are not
Speaker 4: a cult, right.
Speaker 2: We can can't tell in recent years.
Speaker 4: Well, sometimes I understand what you're saying, certainly given some
Speaker 4: of the responses that I've gotten to this, but ultimately
Speaker 4: we are not a party with somebody like Donald Trump
Speaker 4: at the top that says you have to believe every
Speaker 4: single thing right here or else you were excommunicated and
Speaker 4: we're going to try to destroy your life necessarily.
Speaker 6: It's not really that's true, David Well, I've looked at
Speaker 6: the way people people would really get upset with you
Speaker 6: if you had anything negative to say about President Biden
Speaker 6: when he was the one that we should have been
Speaker 6: speaking out about.
Speaker 4: The most right, And I under I completely agree with you. Actually,
Speaker 4: I think one of the challenges in that regard that
Speaker 4: we have to address in our politics is that we've
Speaker 4: created a culture where people are told repeatedly what they
Speaker 4: want to hear instead of what they need to hear. Right,
Speaker 4: And what I believe happened in that regard is, look,
Speaker 4: when you're in the White House and I've seen this
Speaker 4: in different ways, either in the White House or in
Speaker 4: other places. You want to keep your job, and the
Speaker 4: best way to do that is ensure that you get
Speaker 4: this person reelected again. And I think what happens far
Speaker 4: too often in our politics is that people get too
Speaker 4: comfortable and they just tell people what they want to
Speaker 4: hear instead of what they need to hear, over and
Speaker 4: over and over and over again. And frankly, part of
Speaker 4: why I'm doing this is because what I met with
Speaker 4: President Biden in twenty twenty three for an hour in
Speaker 4: the Oval Office, and one of the things that that
Speaker 4: happened to you, well, it was a good meeting, and
Speaker 4: it was it was after he created the Office of
Speaker 4: Gun Violence Prevention at the White House that saw about
Speaker 4: the twenty five percent reduction in gun homicides around the country.
Speaker 4: Part of the challenge is, though you're not gonna hear
Speaker 4: about the shooting. That doesn't have right. But I was
Speaker 4: meeting with him in that regard.
Speaker 1: And did you see the decline in him then?
Speaker 4: So that was one of the challenges is I didn't
Speaker 4: see it personally. And what I wish I had told
Speaker 4: him though, because he asked me, how do I win
Speaker 4: back younger voters. What I wish I had told him, which,
Speaker 4: of course I would have been left out the room
Speaker 4: if I said this was that he shouldn't run for
Speaker 4: office again.
Speaker 3: I know, but that's what needed to be said.
Speaker 1: I was saying that everybody was so mad at me.
Speaker 4: And but that's part of the problem is we need
Speaker 4: to have a more open conversation about these things, because
Speaker 4: we also created an environment where people felt like they
Speaker 4: were excommunicated if they dared to say anything about it.
Speaker 4: And I to some extent, I understand people were afraid
Speaker 4: about potentially re electing Donald Trump, but ultimately look at
Speaker 4: where we ended up.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: We need to build a culture inside of our party
Speaker 4: where we are telling people what they need to hear
Speaker 4: and not just what they want to hear. That's what
Speaker 4: I did when I ran for vice chair. When I
Speaker 4: ran for this position, I said, you know what I'm
Speaker 4: not going to do. I'm not going to be a politician.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to contort myself into some bullshit pretzel
Speaker 4: of whatever you want to see if some bullshit mirage
Speaker 4: of you know. When they asked me, should Joe Biden
Speaker 4: have dropped out? I said, yes, he should have obviously,
Speaker 4: And then when they asked me why we lost the election,
Speaker 4: I said, why do we lose the election? Voters told
Speaker 4: us two things. They said, prices are too high and
Speaker 4: Joe Biden is too old. And we said to them,
Speaker 4: with a power of two billion dollars behind us, no
Speaker 4: he's not, Yes he is. And then we said, no
Speaker 4: they aren't. Look at the stock market.
Speaker 1: And if a majority of people don't have fucking stuff.
Speaker 4: Exactly, and if you tell people not to believe their
Speaker 4: eyeballs or their wallets, you're gonna lose them. And I
Speaker 4: think what we need to build in the party is
Speaker 4: a culture of addressing the realities that people are actually
Speaker 4: going through and what they're actually feeling, not just what
Speaker 4: a chart is telling us that they should be feeling,
Speaker 4: but actually listening to them. And what we're here to
Speaker 4: do is build that culture, regardless of whether or not
Speaker 4: people like it or not, because it needs to say
Speaker 4: if you aren't gonna listen and understand that, frankly, sometimes
Speaker 4: people should not be in these positions of power anymore
Speaker 4: because the consequences are if you die in office, we
Speaker 4: may lose a vote like we just did.
Speaker 3: That's going to.
Speaker 4: Cost billions and billions of dollars and people to lose
Speaker 4: their health care because they chose to stay in power
Speaker 4: for so long that they literally died there. I mean,
Speaker 4: imagine a scenario like this to your point of what
Speaker 4: you were talking about, Imagine we had a scenario where
Speaker 4: we won, you know, a two seat majority in the House,
Speaker 4: we would have already lost it because several of our
Speaker 4: members have died in office. That should not be the case.
Speaker 4: They need to be. We need to be training up
Speaker 4: the next generation and passing down that knowledge and not
Speaker 4: sticking around so long that they're just there forever. And
Speaker 4: I know that's uncomfortable for some people to hear, and
Speaker 4: I certainly get a lot of heat for saying that.
Speaker 4: And it's not to say that there isn't you know that.
Speaker 4: I don't have respect for those people. They've done incredible
Speaker 4: like work and prolific work. But ultimately we have to
Speaker 4: figure out how do we train up the next generation
Speaker 4: to build the best democratic party possible because I think
Speaker 4: what happens is a lot of people don't want to
Speaker 4: train up their successor because that is a threat to them.
Speaker 4: Because if you can be if you train up somebody
Speaker 4: well enough You're going to train them so well that
Speaker 4: you could potentially be replaced, and that's scary to them.
Speaker 4: But ultimately, this isn't about you. It's about the country.
Speaker 4: It's about the party, and it's about what are we
Speaker 4: doing not only to defeat Donald Trump? He's look, he's old.
Speaker 4: I know, Joe Biden's old. Donald Trump is old too.
Speaker 4: I don't know how much longer he's going to be around.
Speaker 4: Why do we keep saying defeat Donald Trump? Though he won,
Speaker 4: right exactly? So that's what I'm getting at is we
Speaker 4: can't just talk about what are we doing to defeat
Speaker 4: Donald Trump? What are we doing to defeat him?
Speaker 3: He won?
Speaker 4: What are we doing to defeat what empowered him? Ultimately,
Speaker 4: what are we doing to address the fact that right
Speaker 4: now he's taking millions and millions of dollars into his
Speaker 4: own cryptocurrency that I think it's very likely that foreign
Speaker 4: governments are buying to buy favor with him. Right What
Speaker 4: are we doing to address the fact that his own
Speaker 4: administration is kidnapping students for op eds that they've written.
Speaker 4: That's horrifying. And the fact that right now, despite all
Speaker 4: of that, that are party's approval rating is that twenty
Speaker 4: seven percent should tell us it is an indictment of
Speaker 4: our party. My question to the people that don't agree
Speaker 4: with this is what is the plan yeah to address
Speaker 4: that If it's not new leadership. Everybody loves to say
Speaker 4: it's just new messaging, it's just new messaging. The problem
Speaker 4: is in DC, the guiding philosophy that guides far too
Speaker 4: many of our principles is what pisses off the least
Speaker 4: people and what raises the most money. That's not a
Speaker 4: winning strategy, because that's what brought us here.
Speaker 2: Congressman Jim Clyburne said that, you know, you know, what
Speaker 2: do you want them to do? Give up their life
Speaker 2: and you told them to get over get over themselves?
Speaker 1: You what do you mean by that?
Speaker 4: What I was getting at more in particular, is first
Speaker 4: and foremost. I think people like Jim Cliburn are incredibly
Speaker 4: important figures in our party and have an incredible legacy.
Speaker 4: What I was getting out was not specific to him.
Speaker 4: What I was getting out was specific to the culture
Speaker 4: that we have in the party that I've heard from
Speaker 4: many members across the board, which is to say, if
Speaker 4: I leave, I feel like my life is over. And
Speaker 4: that's why I'm there and I need to be there.
Speaker 4: That's not a good enough reason to be in office. Frankly, dude,
Speaker 4: right completely, and the congressman collaborator, right, of course. But
Speaker 4: the question should be are you the best representative possible?
Speaker 3: And maybe he is.
Speaker 4: Ultimately his voters obviously re elected him, so maybe he is.
Speaker 4: But the question that we need to be facing here
Speaker 4: is that it ultimately it's not about any single one
Speaker 4: of us. It's about this party. It's about what are
Speaker 4: we doing to make sure that people that rely on
Speaker 4: food stamps aren't having funding cut like we just saw,
Speaker 4: What are we doing to make sure that the tens
Speaker 4: of millions of people that rely on Medicaid aren't having
Speaker 4: Republicans cut funding from that because several of our members
Speaker 4: died while in office and that is part of what
Speaker 4: enabled them to do that. Because ultimately, we need to
Speaker 4: be focused on those several million people and the American
Speaker 4: people more than we need to be focused on ourselves.
Speaker 4: And I'm not, let me be clear, I'm not saying
Speaker 4: that that's specific to Congressman clib Do.
Speaker 1: You regret saying that, like just that choice of words
Speaker 1: get over you?
Speaker 4: I think think what I wish I was more specific,
Speaker 4: and in that regard is that we have a culture
Speaker 4: in our party of saying, like, well, you know, I
Speaker 4: feel like my life is over if I stay here forever,
Speaker 4: and that's why I'm here, and that's not a good
Speaker 4: enough reason of being there. And maybe that's not what
Speaker 4: he's maybe that's not what he was trying to say.
Speaker 4: In that case, I agree.
Speaker 2: With that, because the American people's life could be over
Speaker 2: if you stay too long. Clearly a lot of y'all
Speaker 2: have stayed too long, and you know, y'all have been
Speaker 2: holding onto those same ideologies, and like you said, that
Speaker 2: culture of the Democratic Party has not benefited us. The
Speaker 2: thing that bugs me out the most is twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: They told us vote for President Biden to stop what
Speaker 2: is happening now, and it didn't stop anything. They didn't
Speaker 2: fight hard at all when they got in the office
Speaker 2: to stop what is currently going on in this country
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: It's horrifying.
Speaker 4: I mean, there were things that I think that we
Speaker 4: did do to give them some level of credit. Right
Speaker 4: We got the first federal gun law passed in thirty years.
Speaker 4: That's pretty prolific. That's part of what resulted in twenty
Speaker 4: five percent reduction in gun homicides. It's nowhere near enough
Speaker 4: to be clear.
Speaker 2: But I'm talking of regard to stopping authoritarian rule. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm talking about in regard to stopping with somebody, stopping
Speaker 2: somebody that you know wasn't going to uphold the Constitution.
Speaker 2: They never acted like, well, they talked like Donald Trump
Speaker 2: was a threat, but never really acted like yeah.
Speaker 4: And I think what we should have done if if
Speaker 4: we genuinely felt that way, we would have we would
Speaker 4: have made sure that we were building a culture where
Speaker 4: we were telling people what they need to hear, including
Speaker 4: the President of the United States, and not just what
Speaker 4: they want to hear. And frankly, the fact that I
Speaker 4: didn't say that in that meeting with President Biden, it
Speaker 4: is one of the biggest regrets that I have and
Speaker 4: I will think about almost probably every day for the
Speaker 4: rest of my life. Is in those major moments, sure
Speaker 4: would the President of listened to me? Probably not, and
Speaker 4: I probably would have just been laughed out of the room,
Speaker 4: to be honest with you, but at least I would
Speaker 4: have told him what he needed to hear and not
Speaker 4: just what he wanted to hear. Ultimately, and that is
Speaker 4: what we got to change in our party, And what
Speaker 4: I'll tell you this much is that comfortable politicians don't change.
Speaker 3: They don't.
Speaker 4: And I think right now there's far too much comfort
Speaker 4: in our party in a moment of crisis in our
Speaker 4: country with what we're seeing Donald Trump do across the board,
Speaker 4: I'm tired of seeing strongly written letters, right.
Speaker 1: Strongly written letters with eight strong questions.
Speaker 4: What I think we need more of is people that
Speaker 4: are like Senator Van Holland right, who said, who's a
Speaker 4: senator from Maryland that said he didn't just sit on
Speaker 4: his hands and say I'm in the minority, I can't
Speaker 4: do anything. He said, Donald Trump disappeared one of my
Speaker 4: constituents to El Salvador, and I'm going to l Salvador
Speaker 4: to talk to him. That's what it looks like. That's
Speaker 4: what fighting back it looks like. But it goes beyond
Speaker 4: that too as well. It's about an overall cultural shift
Speaker 4: in our party because right now, I'm curious what you
Speaker 4: guys think of this. If you ask the average American
Speaker 4: if the Democratic Party was an animal, guess what the
Speaker 4: most common answer.
Speaker 1: Is A cowardly line. You want to take a guess
Speaker 1: same cowardly line.
Speaker 3: It's a turtle, a smart.
Speaker 4: You know what it is for Republicans and it's a
Speaker 4: shark or alliant. People want somebody who fights for them ultimately,
Speaker 4: and that is what kills me about what we're saying
Speaker 4: is we are fighting. I do genuinely believe for the
Speaker 4: right reasons and for the right people. But for far
Speaker 4: too many people, they clearly don't feel like we are
Speaker 4: fighting for them ultimately. They don't feel like we're addressing
Speaker 4: their real concerns. And what we need to do is
Speaker 4: elect people that are there to address those concerns and say,
Speaker 4: screw the special interests. We're here to represent you. We're
Speaker 4: not here to represent corporations. We're not in Congress to
Speaker 4: help you know, an extremely wealthy group of people, like
Speaker 4: Republicans are doing right now where they are literally cutting
Speaker 4: billions of dollars in funding for Medicaid and food stamps
Speaker 4: in order to give a I think there's a five
Speaker 4: trillion dollar tax cut to the wealthiest Americans in this country.
Speaker 4: They are literally taking from the poorest and most vomitable
Speaker 4: members of our country and giving it to the most
Speaker 4: affluent and wealthy people. And Donald Trump likes to call
Speaker 4: this his big beautiful bill. It should be called the
Speaker 4: big bullshit bill. That's what that is ultimately, because that's
Speaker 4: not the art of the deal. That's just total bullshit
Speaker 4: that he is pushing there.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if Democrats understand, like, you know, when
Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer talks about how bad this bill is but
Speaker 2: then says he has to support it anyway, do they
Speaker 2: not understand how that missed messaging makes me not ever
Speaker 2: believe anything that comes out.
Speaker 3: Well, it is awful.
Speaker 4: And what I think we need to do is make
Speaker 4: sure that we're better coordinated between the left and the
Speaker 4: right hands right where the House and the Senator properly
Speaker 4: talking to each other. And also if we do have
Speaker 4: to face a tough decision like that, like that's safe
Speaker 4: for a second that that Schumer in that position, let's
Speaker 4: say like he made the best of two bad bads,
Speaker 4: the least bad of two bads. You know, this is right,
Speaker 4: the lesser two weeks. But ultimately, when we're in the minority,
Speaker 4: unfortunately we don't have the choice of that a lot
Speaker 4: of the time.
Speaker 1: But even when they're in a majority, it's like we're.
Speaker 4: Picking and it shouldn't be. To be clear, and I
Speaker 4: think the way that we do that it was we
Speaker 4: change our cast of characters to make sure that we
Speaker 4: are fighting harder and showing that we're going to fight
Speaker 4: to elect p people that are like our first endorsed candidate,
Speaker 4: actually Senator Robert Peters in Illinois, who actually currently is
Speaker 4: in the same Senate seat as Barack Obama was when
Speaker 4: he was in the state legislature there, and the reason
Speaker 4: why we had him just as an example of what
Speaker 4: we need more of to help make sure that we're
Speaker 4: pushing our leaders to be better, because leaders are the
Speaker 4: consequences of the people that vote for them, right, whether
Speaker 4: that is the American people that are voting for them,
Speaker 4: or that is the people inside of Congress that are
Speaker 4: voting for them. Senator Peters in Illinois, what he did
Speaker 4: that was really remarkable to us is it's not enough
Speaker 4: just to have the right values. That is obviously the
Speaker 4: first and most important thing in terms of fighting to
Speaker 4: ensure like he did that he's he ended cash bail
Speaker 4: in the state of Illinois, and they built a system
Speaker 4: where it's based off of how much of a risk
Speaker 4: somebody is to society whether or not they get out,
Speaker 4: not whether or not they can afford to get out.
Speaker 4: But on top of that, he also did things like
Speaker 4: increased tenant protections and made it so that if you
Speaker 4: have a mental health crisis and you're insurance companies don't
Speaker 4: love to pay for therapy a lot of the time.
Speaker 4: So part of what they addressed was prior authorizations for insurance.
Speaker 4: What we're looking for people with the right values who
Speaker 4: also gedget had done right. That's what I care about ultimately,
Speaker 4: And he passed over one hundred and twenty bills through
Speaker 4: the legislature and got them signed into law. That is
Speaker 4: what we're looking for more of in Congress. People that
Speaker 4: have the experience, that have the grit, that have the
Speaker 4: determination and the will to get done, and have the
Speaker 4: lived experience that far too many members of Congress frankly
Speaker 4: only pretend to even know about. And he knows that
Speaker 4: himself because unfortunately, at a younger age, he lost his parents,
Speaker 4: went through the foster care system, and went on to
Speaker 4: still become this prolific leader in the Illinois state legislature.
Speaker 4: And I think part of the reason for that is
Speaker 4: because he personally knows the consequences of what happens when
Speaker 4: we don't lead on these issues and that's what we
Speaker 4: need a lot more of in Congress. But it's not
Speaker 4: just any young person, to be clear, right, there's lots
Speaker 4: of young people who suck. There's lots of old people
Speaker 4: who are great. It's not as simple as saying if
Speaker 4: you're above a certain age, you shouldn't necessarily be there.
Speaker 4: It's about effectiveness, right, And the issue that I take
Speaker 4: more breadly speaking with the party right now is that
Speaker 4: it feels like we've leaned so much on this culture
Speaker 4: of seniority politics that if you just wait for the
Speaker 4: most experienced people, that they're going to be the ones
Speaker 4: to get things done the best, over and over and
Speaker 4: that's what we said over and over and over again.
Speaker 4: But that's what got us here. If that was the
Speaker 4: best situation for us to lead us out of these moments,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be talking to you right now because this
Speaker 4: wouldn't be a problem, right, because Donald Trump wouldn't have
Speaker 4: been elected again in the first place. But here we are,
Speaker 4: and experience matters. But it has to be effective experience ultimately,
Speaker 4: because if you're just there for thirty years and you
Speaker 4: don't know how to get things done, that experience doesn't
Speaker 4: mean anything.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: But if you've been there for three years and you
Speaker 4: know how to get things done, that's a lot more
Speaker 4: important to me.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So we're not just looking to find any young person.
Speaker 4: We're looking to find the best of the best of
Speaker 4: our generation to get them elected around the country.
Speaker 2: What advice have owed the progressives given you privately that
Speaker 2: contradicts their public message.
Speaker 4: I've heard from a lot of members of Congress that
Speaker 4: have thanked me for doing this, even not so young
Speaker 4: members of Congress that have thanked me for doing this
Speaker 4: and said that this is dramatically needed, but they don't
Speaker 4: want to speak out about it because they obviously don't
Speaker 4: want to say that some of their colleagues shouldn't necessarily
Speaker 4: be there anymore. But look, I'm willing to do that.
Speaker 4: I don't care.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 4: I didn't get to this position by saying over and
Speaker 4: over again, Oh, I'm just gonna conserve my political capital,
Speaker 4: and I'm just going to be extremely risk averse. I
Speaker 4: know the consequences of what of that type of politics.
Speaker 4: My generation knows the consequences of that type of politics
Speaker 4: of saying, oh, let's just cower ourselves and negotiate against
Speaker 4: ourselves more and more and more and more and more,
Speaker 4: to the point that Eddi, it makes us question why
Speaker 4: the how are we even there in the first place, right,
Speaker 4: because we're not there just to sit in a comfortable chair.
Speaker 4: We're there to get out of it and get things
Speaker 4: done to show people why they should vote for us,
Speaker 4: not just because of how that we're the less bad
Speaker 4: of two options, like you talk about, but that were
Speaker 4: the best option overall. Right, I'm tired of voting for
Speaker 4: the least bad of two options. I want to vote
Speaker 4: for the best option. Ultimately, I've got two more questions.
Speaker 2: Would you ever consider helping to start a third party
Speaker 2: of Democrats continue ignoring your generation's demands.
Speaker 4: No, because this is not their party. Ultimately, the people
Speaker 4: that are trying to you know that are against this.
Speaker 4: The Democratic Party doesn't belong to anybody in leadership. It
Speaker 4: doesn't belong to me. It doesn't belong to any of
Speaker 4: the official members of the DNC, the or the official
Speaker 4: leaders of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party belongs to
Speaker 4: the American people and the millions of Democrats that are
Speaker 4: elected around the country that we are here to try
Speaker 4: to represent as much as possible. So no, I'm not
Speaker 4: about to leave and try to start my own party,
Speaker 4: because ultimately, this isn't you know, the people that are
Speaker 4: against this.
Speaker 3: This isn't their party.
Speaker 4: It's all of our party, and it's a matter of
Speaker 4: what type of party do we want to build in
Speaker 4: the first place.
Speaker 2: Okay, my last question, I'm just going to throw some
Speaker 2: names at you, and because because these people to me
Speaker 2: represent what the next generation of Democrats could look like,
Speaker 2: I just want to know what your thoughts of them are.
Speaker 1: Governor Wesmore and Maryland.
Speaker 4: So, I think Governor Wes Moore has done a pretty
Speaker 4: amazing job. He actually has a really cool program that
Speaker 4: I don't think has been talked about very much where
Speaker 4: he works. I think it's called like the mid Career Program,
Speaker 4: where they'd taken a class of several hundred young people
Speaker 4: and put them into different jobs around the state of
Speaker 4: Maryland and it really helps get them started in their
Speaker 4: lives and their careers and like help turn things around.
Speaker 4: And there have even been people that have gone into
Speaker 4: this program that that I've heard about that started out
Speaker 4: literally homeless that now have gone on to get jobs
Speaker 4: and do things like that. So that's great. I love
Speaker 4: Governor Wes Moore. I will say this much. If yeah,
Speaker 4: I can't. I can't talk at all about the any
Speaker 4: potential presidential nominees. I'm not saying that he is or
Speaker 4: is not running, but I can't give any opinion specifically
Speaker 4: on that. I think people boo to Judge clearly was
Speaker 4: a very good Secretary of Transportation given the situation that
Speaker 4: we're in right now, and I think I think with
Speaker 4: Pete he represents a level of sanity that I think
Speaker 4: people are craving right now. They're tired of the chaos
Speaker 4: that I think Donald Trump represents a lot of the time.
Speaker 4: I don't think people want to have a president that
Speaker 4: they have to hear about doing something ridiculous in the
Speaker 4: headlines every single day. That is frankly an embarrassment to
Speaker 4: our country and internationally as well. So I think Pete
Speaker 4: could be great. What I really like about him is that,
Speaker 4: and I'm just talking about like future leaders. I'm not
Speaker 4: talking about anything about presidential or anything like that. To
Speaker 4: be extremely that's generation democratics. What I really like about
Speaker 4: him is I think he does an excellent job of
Speaker 4: talking to people who don't agree with him.
Speaker 3: Yes, I agree, that is what we need more of.
Speaker 4: When I was actually in college, I joined the shooting club.
Speaker 4: As you can imagine, I was very popular there, right,
Speaker 4: And I didn't do that because I was super popular.
Speaker 4: I did that because I wanted to talk to the
Speaker 4: people who disagree with me most. And what I realized
Speaker 4: from those conversations, at least on the issue of gun
Speaker 4: violence a lot of the time, is that it's it's
Speaker 4: not even for a lot of people that there's super
Speaker 4: overtly against this, even if they say that they're against it.
Speaker 4: A lot of the time, when people don't agree with
Speaker 4: something on this, it's because they feel disrespected by you,
Speaker 4: they feel unheard, they feel looked down on. And when
Speaker 4: you have an actual conversation with them and say, okay,
Speaker 4: why do you feel this way? What can we agree on?
Speaker 3: You start making progress with them.
Speaker 4: That's why I've talked to people who've said to me
Speaker 4: even crazy things like people who think that the shooting
Speaker 4: in my high school didn't happen. Why I've engaged with
Speaker 4: and said, obviously, I don't agree with you on that
Speaker 4: because they're conspiracy theorists, right, And it's hard for me
Speaker 4: to have that conversation, incredibly hard. But I'm not here
Speaker 4: to have easy conversations and get nothing done. I'm here
Speaker 4: to have hard conversations and help fundamentally change this issue
Speaker 4: so that no other generation has to live through it
Speaker 4: in the first place. And what I learned from those
Speaker 4: conversations is when they say an insults me, or they
Speaker 4: say something like I just mentioned, when I respond and
Speaker 4: I say, look, I can respect that you don't agree
Speaker 4: with me, but I can't accept the fact that you
Speaker 4: don't want school shootings or gun violence to continue either.
Speaker 4: So to figure out what we can't agree on, even
Speaker 4: if it's a small thing. When I do that, at
Speaker 4: the end of every single conversation that I've had like that,
Speaker 4: without fail, if they continue talking to me, they end
Speaker 4: up apologizing and saying I may not agree with you
Speaker 4: on everything, but I respect you. And then they'll come
Speaker 4: back a lot of the time and say, actually, I've
Speaker 4: changed my mind because of our conversation, and I now
Speaker 4: support you, and I shouldn't have said that the shooting
Speaker 4: at your high school didn't happen, and I was wrong
Speaker 4: for that, and I'm sorry. And that is what the
Speaker 4: most powerful force to me is is how to turn
Speaker 4: that hatred into Hope's shoot. No, I didn't now I
Speaker 4: was one of the best shots on the team because
Speaker 4: my dad was an FBI agent. But that's what I
Speaker 4: think Pete is really good at representing, is helping to
Speaker 4: kind of bring people together and talk to the people
Speaker 4: that don't agree and explain without compromising his values what
Speaker 4: we believe as Democrats, and I think it's really powerful.
Speaker 1: Names govern to Josh Shapiro.
Speaker 4: You know, I think with Josh Shapiro, he has a
Speaker 4: huge amount of favorability for a reason in Pennsylvania ultimately,
Speaker 4: and you know, I think it's interesting as a swing state.
Speaker 4: They have a pretty close state logist as well, and
Speaker 4: there's been some great work that they've done on gun
Speaker 4: violence as well. Javna Crockett Jasmine Crockett, I love her.
Speaker 3: She is amazing.
Speaker 4: I think that people want to see somebody who fights
Speaker 4: and calls out the bullshit. Ultimately. I think that's what
Speaker 4: Jasmine does. And we need a hell of a lot
Speaker 4: more people that are out there that are willing to
Speaker 4: do just that and call people out on their ps
Speaker 4: and not say, oh my god, Republicans are going to
Speaker 4: criticize me for saying this, screw that, They're going to
Speaker 4: criticize you no matter what So what we should be
Speaker 4: asking ourselves is what are we really fighting for? Because
Speaker 4: we know it matters. And I think Jasmine is, frankly
Speaker 4: the type of leader that we're really looking to support
Speaker 4: in some senses, right, somebody who is out there that
Speaker 4: frankly doesn't give a damn with the other side. At
Speaker 4: least the elected Republicans in Congress say that say what
Speaker 4: they believe in, and at least you know, even if
Speaker 4: you don't agree with her, you know what she stands
Speaker 4: for because she makes it very clear. And people are
Speaker 4: really craving that right now. They don't want more politicians
Speaker 4: that say talking points that it doesn't even feel like
Speaker 4: they believe, or you don't even really know what they mean.
Speaker 4: They want somebody who's out there that says what they
Speaker 4: believe and doesn't care what somebody else thinks about it.
Speaker 4: They want that authenticity.
Speaker 1: Govin and Gretchen Wimmer.
Speaker 4: I think part of what was really great with Gretchen
Speaker 4: Wimmer and her focus was on infrastructure right people. I
Speaker 4: think Democrats need to do a lot more of finding
Speaker 4: the issues that nobody likes and addressing them in a
Speaker 4: substantial matter. So part of her campaign was addressing potholes, right,
Speaker 4: really basic, just saying fix the damn roads.
Speaker 3: We need more of that. Right.
Speaker 4: I want to make sure that if somebody is out
Speaker 4: there that when we have democratic cities, for example, that
Speaker 4: they should be the most efficiently run, safest and clean
Speaker 4: cities in the world. Ultimately that are the best run possible.
Speaker 4: And I think part of our strategy for twenty twenty
Speaker 4: eight and twenty twenty six needs to be talking about, Okay,
Speaker 4: what are we doing to address the fact that it
Speaker 4: is incredibly hard for people to pay their rent right
Speaker 4: now because rents have gone up so much. What are
Speaker 4: we doing to address the fact that our roads are
Speaker 4: terrible in far too many places? Because I think the
Speaker 4: pathway forward for Democrats is if we're successful. What I
Speaker 4: want people to think when they hear the word democrat
Speaker 4: is two things competence and integrity.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: I want them to know that we get things done
Speaker 4: and that we have the integrity to stand behind what
Speaker 4: we truly believe in and accomplish it at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, whether that's making sure that you don't
Speaker 4: go bankrupt because you want to go to the doctor,
Speaker 4: or that's making sure that you don't you know, pop
Speaker 4: a tire on a pothole, or making sure that you
Speaker 4: can actually afford a home ultimately, because the biggest challenges
Speaker 4: to those things should not be how it shouldn't be
Speaker 4: how expensive it is. Everything is too damn expensive, way
Speaker 4: too damn expensive. What we got to figure out is
Speaker 4: how do we address the cost of all those things
Speaker 4: across the board, because the American dream for those essentials,
Speaker 4: the things that we don't have options of buying a
Speaker 4: roof over our head, right, health care, insurance, and things
Speaker 4: like elder care like for my father, or childcare. Those
Speaker 4: things are way too damn expensive and guess what Republicans
Speaker 4: are not going to fit them. So the question was
Speaker 4: is Democrats needs to be what are we going to
Speaker 4: do to fix it? And some of that needs to
Speaker 4: be making it easier for people to be able to
Speaker 4: buy a house, but it's also about addressing why are
Speaker 4: there's so few houses to begin with at the same time,
Speaker 4: and not treating it as an either or, but addressing
Speaker 4: the demand side and the supply side of it.
Speaker 1: At the same time. Some more names AOC.
Speaker 3: How long do you have?
Speaker 4: I mean, AOC has been a huge inspiration to me
Speaker 4: when I because she got elected in twenty eighteen and famously,
Speaker 4: you know, I also want to mention she challenged a Democrat, Yes, right.
Speaker 4: Imagine if we didn't have AOC right now going out
Speaker 4: there and rallying tens of thousands of people. Imagine that, right.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't just any Democrat that she challenged, it
Speaker 4: was one of the most powerful Democrats in the House.
Speaker 4: And frankly, the way that she's been treated simply for
Speaker 4: doing that, I find horrible and unacceptable. I think that
Speaker 4: she should have been the head of oversight, frankly, so
Speaker 4: that she could have gone out there and spoken out
Speaker 4: about all this stuff. What I really like about her
Speaker 4: is more than anything, that you clearly know that she
Speaker 4: believes what she's saying. Absolutely, she clearly believes what she's saying.
Speaker 4: And she knows how to communicate on social media because
Speaker 4: she grew up with it she's young. And also she
Speaker 4: doesn't you know, she's not out there taking money from
Speaker 4: special interests. You know, regardless of whether or not you
Speaker 4: agree with AOC, at least you can say that she's
Speaker 4: not owned by anyone, right, She's not owned by any
Speaker 4: special interest or anything like that that's finding her campaign
Speaker 4: because she is saying what she believes in at the
Speaker 4: end of the day, and I think we need to
Speaker 4: help a lot more of that, and we need to
Speaker 4: create a culture where if somebody does successfully challenge, you know,
Speaker 4: a member like that, that they aren't shut out and
Speaker 4: kept out. Because she is a huge asset to our
Speaker 4: party that I do not believe is being utilized nearly enough.
Speaker 4: And we need to accept the fact that we're going
Speaker 4: to have challenges in our own party, sometimes to incumbent Democrats.
Speaker 4: That's okay, that's healthy. Competition is a healthy thing. Imagine
Speaker 4: if we just said no, you can't do that, you
Speaker 4: need to wait your turn over and over again. I
Speaker 4: don't think that we'd be in a very good place
Speaker 4: right now. So I love her. I think she is
Speaker 4: a prolific lader, and we need a lot more people
Speaker 4: like her.
Speaker 1: My last name.
Speaker 2: These are people who I believe are the future and
Speaker 2: now in the future of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: John Stuart, John Stewart, John Stuart.
Speaker 4: So what I love about John is I think he
Speaker 4: he and Donald Trump actually have the same greatest strength.
Speaker 4: And this is going to sound controversial, is that they're funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, not controversial.
Speaker 4: So I think what's controversial with some Democrats, right, but
Speaker 4: I think what happens.
Speaker 1: They don't have a sense of humor.
Speaker 4: Well truly, Yeah, that's a whole nother com Well. I
Speaker 4: think John Stewart has a sense of certainly. I think
Speaker 4: what happens a lot of the time with Donald Trump
Speaker 4: that we don't realize is that people in the America,
Speaker 4: in our America, we don't think of authoritarians as funny people.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: It's very disarming to people because when we're freaking out
Speaker 4: and saying, oh my god, he's doing X, Y and
Speaker 4: Z thing, what a lot of normal people see is,
Speaker 4: what do you mean he's going and working at a
Speaker 4: McDonald's as part of like a political stunt, or what
Speaker 4: do you mean he's going and I don't know, just
Speaker 4: going and distract, like making all these weird jokes and stuff,
Speaker 4: or you know, going on and on about it. And
Speaker 4: it's very disarming to people, frankly, in a very dangerous way,
Speaker 4: because he is a dangerous man, very as we're seeing
Speaker 4: around the country. But I think with John Stewart, what
Speaker 4: I like about him is the same thing that I
Speaker 4: like about AOC. He's funny, he says what he believes in,
Speaker 4: and he gets shited done. And I know that because
Speaker 4: I saw when they were working on the Packed Actor.
Speaker 4: Sorry might get emotion, I'm talking about this. That summer
Speaker 4: they were Democrats were working on passing the largest expansion
Speaker 4: of veterans healthcare in American history. And that's in part
Speaker 4: because of President Biden's lift experience obviously with his son,
Speaker 4: which was horrifying. Died of cancer, very likely caused by
Speaker 4: a burnpit. I got a text from a friend that said, hey,
Speaker 4: there's some veterans that are out here that are protesting
Speaker 4: because what happened is Democrats actually out maneuvered, to Chuck
Speaker 4: Schumer's credit, he out maneuvered Mitch McConnell with the Inflation
Speaker 4: Reduction Act and Mitch McConnell was pissed about that. So
Speaker 4: what happened is they said, you know what, we're going
Speaker 4: to screw over the veterans. So right before they went
Speaker 4: on recess, they killed the Packed Act from passing. The
Speaker 4: Republicans did the largest expansion of veterans healthcare in American history.
Speaker 3: And I took this personally.
Speaker 4: There are let me count off the top of my head, went,
Speaker 4: there's at least four Navy pilots in my family that
Speaker 4: we've had between my aunt, my uncle, my grandpa, and
Speaker 4: my father, and my dad has Parkinson's very likely caused
Speaker 4: by being exposed to Judge fuel and other toxic substances
Speaker 4: in the military. And my friend texted me and said, Hey,
Speaker 4: there's a group of veterans that are sleeping on the
Speaker 4: steps of the US Senate right now and they're going
Speaker 4: to stay out there, pulling all nighters what they called
Speaker 4: a firewatch until this bill passes. And I went out
Speaker 4: there and I was talking to them, and I was
Speaker 4: so inspired by them because I saw my dad in them,
Speaker 4: I saw my family members in them that I said,
Speaker 4: what I'm gonna do is I'm just going to stay
Speaker 4: out here and I'm going to interview you guys like
Speaker 4: all night. So I took out my phone and I
Speaker 4: literally just posted directly to Twitter. I said, tell me
Speaker 4: your story and why you're here. And I heard so
Speaker 4: many heartbreaking stories of veterans who served overseas that then
Speaker 4: got a rare form of cancer and were denied their
Speaker 4: benefits that our country failed to serve. That is why
Speaker 4: they were out there. And one of those people that
Speaker 4: I met, you know, had worked for the federal government,
Speaker 4: and now he is facing a very real chance that
Speaker 4: his retirement is going to be cut by several hundred
Speaker 4: thousand dollars because of this bill that Republicans are pushing
Speaker 4: through right now. And I will never forget when John
Speaker 4: Stewart showed up to support those veterans and help get
Speaker 4: that bill passed, and it did get passed. Is one
Speaker 4: of the largest expansions ever the veterans' healthcare. Because in
Speaker 4: the past, you used to say, you used to have
Speaker 4: to say, oh, you know, this very rare form of
Speaker 4: cancer that I got, you had to prove that it
Speaker 4: was because you were exposed to all of these toxic
Speaker 4: chemicals like agent orange or whatever else it might have
Speaker 4: been in the military in order to get health care
Speaker 4: for that. Why the hell is it on our veterans
Speaker 4: that have served our country and risk their lives for
Speaker 4: their country and sacrifice so much to prove to the
Speaker 4: government that they served that their health care, that their
Speaker 4: cancer is caused by that. I think it should be
Speaker 4: on the government to prove why it isn't caused by that,
Speaker 4: Because if we're willing to spend trillions of dollars on
Speaker 4: stupid bullshit wars, overseas. We should be willing to spend
Speaker 4: at least a couple of billion taking care of our
Speaker 4: damn veterans that put their ass on the line. For
Speaker 4: the politicians in DC that are way too comfortable right now,
Speaker 4: and the fact that Republicans killed that at the last
Speaker 4: second and we had to shame them in order to
Speaker 4: pass that is disgusting. But that's part of the reason
Speaker 4: why I'm a Democrat, because we do stuff like that.
Speaker 4: We got that bill passed and we massively expanded healthcare
Speaker 4: for millions of veterans around the country. But what scares
Speaker 4: me is Republicans are already trying to chip away at
Speaker 4: it and erode against it. So Yes, John Stewart is
Speaker 4: an incredible and prolific figure that I think I wouldn't
Speaker 4: even say is the future of our party. I would
Speaker 4: say he is a major part of our party right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's my hope.
Speaker 2: And I know you can't say this. I want him
Speaker 2: to be President of the United States of America. I
Speaker 2: really do. I think that he is such a fantastic,
Speaker 2: thick messenger, and he actually knows politics, and he cares
Speaker 2: about people and for the way the country is now
Speaker 2: and where the country is going. As far as messaging,
Speaker 2: you need somebody like him front and center that it's
Speaker 2: my thought, David Hogg, thank you brother. I like the
Speaker 2: work that you're doing. Man, keep fighting a good fight.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's right. If they can support you in anyway, what
Speaker 1: should they do?
Speaker 4: People can just check out our website at leaders we
Speaker 4: Deserve dot com and you can also see on there
Speaker 4: too as we create more endorsements. Who's out there as well?
Speaker 1: Absolutely it is. David Hog is the Breakfast Club, Wake
Speaker 1: that answer up in the morning. Breakfast Club