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Jose Vega: Declare Independence | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:18
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the UK Colin today. I'm delighted
0:21
Speaker 1: to be joined once again by Jose Vega. It's been
0:25
Speaker 1: well over a year since you've been on the program. Jose, welcome,
0:29
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Happy to be here, happy to
0:31
Speaker 1: be on now. For those that don't know you, you are.
0:35
Speaker 1: You live in the Bronx, and you stood in twenty
0:38
Speaker 1: twenty four against Richie Torres for Congress, and I believe
0:42
Speaker 1: you're standing again in the midterms. The thing about that is,
0:49
Speaker 1: this question of whether people should be getting involved in
0:53
Speaker 1: politics or not is something that is a constant refrain.
0:57
Speaker 1: But you have a the process of or at least
1:02
Speaker 1: the process of just getting on the ballot is one
1:05
Speaker 1: that actually you should be proud of, no matter what
1:07
Speaker 1: the result may have been in twenty twenty four.
1:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you and you know, yeah, and we're
1:13
Speaker 2: doing it again of course this year. And this year
1:16
Speaker 2: we took a different approach too. It wasn't just independent.
1:19
Speaker 2: So in the United States forty eight of the states
1:23
Speaker 2: of the fifty only two of them, only two states
1:29
Speaker 2: actually let you do both the running and the major
1:33
Speaker 2: priorty in the primary and in the general election in November.
1:38
Speaker 2: Often in a lot of these states, the big election,
1:41
Speaker 2: or the real election as they say, is in the primaries,
1:45
Speaker 2: especially in some of these states where the major parties
1:49
Speaker 2: have such a stronghold, right, you know, because places like
1:52
Speaker 2: New York, a Republican would never win. However, given the atmosphere,
1:56
Speaker 2: given the change of politics, given the ch change that
2:00
Speaker 2: people have been wanting and thirsty four in the United States,
2:04
Speaker 2: we thought we could make a real intervention in the
2:08
Speaker 2: entire electoral system. So we decided to do a two
2:11
Speaker 2: pronged approach where we run in the Democratic primary and
2:15
Speaker 2: we run in the general election. Because at the end
2:18
Speaker 2: of the day, we are independents. We don't feel beholden
2:22
Speaker 2: to any party, you know, left or right, Democrat or Republican.
2:26
Speaker 2: We don't play that game, and we truly believe that
2:30
Speaker 2: both parties are in fact one in the same. So
2:34
Speaker 2: we collected enough signatures to be on the ballot for
2:37
Speaker 2: both the Democrat primary and the general election, which was a.
2:41
Speaker 1: Commod how many how.
2:43
Speaker 2: So you have six weeks to collect for just a
2:47
Speaker 2: Democratic primary, would be about fifteen hundred minimum, is the
2:51
Speaker 2: quote unquote just enough. But they have to be valid
2:54
Speaker 2: and your opposition is allowed to challenge your signatures if
2:57
Speaker 2: they wanted to, as in they can go through it
3:00
Speaker 2: line by line and say this person doesn't live here,
3:02
Speaker 2: or this person wrote down their name wrong, or we
3:05
Speaker 2: can't identify this person because of bad handwriting. So you
3:08
Speaker 2: always want to go triple. So for us, our enough
3:11
Speaker 2: was forty five hundred for the Democratic primary and you
3:14
Speaker 2: only have six weeks to collect that, and then for
3:16
Speaker 2: the independent or the general election enough the bare minimum
3:21
Speaker 2: is thirty five hundred, but we go by the rule
3:24
Speaker 2: of three or to multiply by three, So we went
3:27
Speaker 2: for at least ten thousand, five hundred, and I'm proud
3:29
Speaker 2: to say we blew that out of the water. We
3:31
Speaker 2: had a combined total of fifteen thousand signatures between the
3:35
Speaker 2: Democratic primary and the independent general election, and you know,
3:40
Speaker 2: we were able to do that within six weeks of
3:43
Speaker 2: you know, the respective timeframe you had to collect for
3:46
Speaker 2: each one.
3:47
Speaker 1: And so what size is a constituency just to get
3:51
Speaker 1: an idea.
3:52
Speaker 2: Of, oh, the eligible voters is there's about three hundred
3:58
Speaker 2: thousand Democrat voters and then there's an additional one hundred
4:03
Speaker 2: thousand independents, So there's about four hundred thousand Democrats independents,
4:09
Speaker 2: and there's a very tiny number of Republicans, only thirty
4:12
Speaker 2: thousand Republicans in the district, so about four hundred and
4:16
Speaker 2: thirty thousand people who are eligible or who are registered
4:19
Speaker 2: to vote. You know, there's an even bigger eligible number
4:22
Speaker 2: of people, like for example, the district has made up
4:25
Speaker 2: of eight hundred thousand people, but you know, not all
4:28
Speaker 2: of them are registered to vote. In fact, in the
4:31
Speaker 2: Democratic primary, which happened on June twenty third, you know,
4:35
Speaker 2: we saw this big wave of Democrat, independent insurgent candidates
4:39
Speaker 2: who won their races. But in our race in the Bronx,
4:44
Speaker 2: it was one of the lowest voter turnouts, you know,
4:49
Speaker 2: only I think something like thirty thousand people thirty five
4:53
Speaker 2: thousand people in change came out to vote, where in
4:57
Speaker 2: the other districts you had double and in some cases
5:00
Speaker 2: even triple that number, which goes to show a very
5:03
Speaker 2: big lack of enthusiasm for the incumbent. And also you know,
5:07
Speaker 2: for the fact that people wanted knew that there was
5:10
Speaker 2: any opposition, So you know, that's that's what happened in
5:13
Speaker 2: the primary. And of course, regardless of that, we take
5:17
Speaker 2: that with us. We got the six percent that we
5:20
Speaker 2: got and we take that with us into November, meaning
5:23
Speaker 2: we have an additional four months, you know, starting from
5:26
Speaker 2: June twenty third to November to turn it around and
5:29
Speaker 2: you know, change the outcome.
5:30
Speaker 1: Again, what happened in twenty twenty four you were running
5:34
Speaker 1: against Richie Torres, and was what was the outcome of that?
5:38
Speaker 1: But more importantly, I suppose what I'm trying to get
5:41
Speaker 1: a feeling for is, you know, often people you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: obviously you don't have the finance and so on that
5:48
Speaker 1: the likes of Torres has, so you know you're on
5:50
Speaker 1: an uphill struggle even to begin with. But what is
5:56
Speaker 1: the impact of a campaign like yours on the election
6:00
Speaker 1: process even though you may not be in a winning position?
6:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think in twenty twenty four, one of
6:08
Speaker 2: the reasons we ran against Richie Torres was because it
6:10
Speaker 2: was the right thing to do. And there was this
6:12
Speaker 2: sort of air here in the United States where people
6:16
Speaker 2: were so desperate because we had the same two options,
6:21
Speaker 2: a Democrat and a Republican or in that case, it
6:23
Speaker 2: was Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris, and nobody was really
6:27
Speaker 2: super enthusiastic for one or the other. And you know,
6:32
Speaker 2: we felt like, okay, maybe there could be a big
6:34
Speaker 2: break in the country. We always knew that what we
6:36
Speaker 2: were doing was never rooted in just you know, what
6:39
Speaker 2: was going on locally, but what was going on nationally.
6:42
Speaker 2: And we had such a big national, you know, support
6:45
Speaker 2: base for us that we decided, you know what, let's
6:49
Speaker 2: run independent for the very first time. Even though our
6:53
Speaker 2: opponent has fifteen million dollars in the bank, you know,
6:56
Speaker 2: that's and we had nothing. Fact, the only thing I
7:00
Speaker 2: have is this this laptop that I'm talking to you on. Now.
7:05
Speaker 2: You know, we have an office, now, we have a
7:06
Speaker 2: whole studio, and we have you know, much more, much
7:11
Speaker 2: more resources than we did two years ago. But you know,
7:15
Speaker 2: we did it because it was the right thing to do,
7:17
Speaker 2: and even though the result wasn't what we wanted. It
7:22
Speaker 2: was also one of the most difficult years to run
7:24
Speaker 2: a congressional campaign as a complete independent because the majority
7:29
Speaker 2: of the time in the United States, people will vote
7:31
Speaker 2: down ballot based off of who you know, they're voting
7:34
Speaker 2: for president, right, So it's very difficult to compete in
7:37
Speaker 2: that environment where everyone's gonna vote either Donald Trump or
7:41
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris, and they're going to vote whoever has the
7:44
Speaker 2: line right. So Kamala Harris was a Democrat. Most people
7:48
Speaker 2: don't know who Richie Torres even is, so they decide,
7:51
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna vot Kamala Harris and vote the next Democrat,
7:54
Speaker 2: which is Richie Torres. But you know, I think that
7:58
Speaker 2: the impact was that we sort of showed that if
8:03
Speaker 2: we could do it, and you know, I mean there
8:05
Speaker 2: was a period where I was living out of my
8:07
Speaker 2: car two years ago, and you know, I kind of
8:10
Speaker 2: gave gave everything and still do give everything to making this,
8:15
Speaker 2: you know, works as well as it could. That anybody
8:19
Speaker 2: could do this, you know, around the country, and that
8:22
Speaker 2: anybody should do this around the country. Not necessarily because
8:27
Speaker 2: they think, you know, they might be the next dadi
8:29
Speaker 2: A Lisa ave La Chevalier, who was one of the
8:32
Speaker 2: people who won here in New York, and they're going
8:35
Speaker 2: to cause some major upset, but because it's important to
8:38
Speaker 2: increase the tension in people's minds about what's wrong with
8:42
Speaker 2: our politics, what's wrong with our government, the crimes that
8:45
Speaker 2: we're committing. That that's important, that that you have to
8:49
Speaker 2: be a part of raising the stakes on that, and
8:52
Speaker 2: that doesn't look the same for everyone. For some people,
8:54
Speaker 2: that might not look like electoral politics. You know, for us,
8:57
Speaker 2: we thought it did. And even then there's also layers
9:01
Speaker 2: within that too, you know, for example, like we do
9:06
Speaker 2: things that other campaigns wouldn't do. You know, like if
9:10
Speaker 2: you were running like a very straight shooter campaign, you
9:14
Speaker 2: would keep like I do, I mean like I don't
9:17
Speaker 2: I you would not go after anyone but your opponent.
9:20
Speaker 2: You don't talk about how bad the party is. You
9:22
Speaker 2: don't talk about how bad you know, the the establishment is.
9:27
Speaker 2: It's simply your opponent is the main source of all
9:29
Speaker 2: these problems, and that's who you focus on. And I said,
9:33
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do that, because the problem is
9:35
Speaker 2: the entire Democratic Party is the Republican Party. There's only
9:39
Speaker 2: one real party in this country, and it's the War Party.
9:43
Speaker 2: And as a result, you know, what we found was
9:45
Speaker 2: that we ate a lot of a lot of dirt
9:49
Speaker 2: from people who would tell me, you know, Hoose, I
9:52
Speaker 2: want to support you, but you know, the problem is
9:54
Speaker 2: you're you're going after the entire establishment, and that's not
9:59
Speaker 2: good because a lot of the politics in your area,
10:03
Speaker 2: a lot of the politics in the country is held
10:05
Speaker 2: up by this party that you're attacking, and they're not
10:08
Speaker 2: going to be happy with you attacking them. And they said,
10:12
Speaker 2: if you just simply stuck to Richie Torres, if you
10:15
Speaker 2: just stuck to your opponent and say he's the problem
10:19
Speaker 2: of everything, that you might have had a shot and
10:21
Speaker 2: we could have supported you without upsetting this person or
10:24
Speaker 2: that person. And I said, well, that's ridiculous, because you
10:28
Speaker 2: know the whole Richie Torres isn't the issue. He's an issue, right,
10:34
Speaker 2: But there is a system here in the United States
10:37
Speaker 2: where if our politics is rewarding and creating these kind
10:42
Speaker 2: of people like my opponent, Richie Torres, who has taken
10:45
Speaker 2: millions of dollars from APEC, the American Israeli Political Affairs Committee,
10:50
Speaker 2: who's taken millions of dollars from Wall Street, from cryptocurrency bros.
10:54
Speaker 2: From you know, Silicon Valley tech bros. If they're rewarding him,
11:00
Speaker 2: the Congress is full of people like him. So he's
11:04
Speaker 2: not the problem, okay, And of course I'm gonna call
11:07
Speaker 2: him out. Of course I want to unseat him. But
11:09
Speaker 2: at the same time, people need to come to a
11:11
Speaker 2: major reconciliation with you know, this party that they say
11:15
Speaker 2: they're a part of is just promoting war and genocide
11:19
Speaker 2: and all these other things. So, you know, being able
11:24
Speaker 2: to run a relentless campaign just going after them was
11:28
Speaker 2: the most fun of it. To be unfiltered and unafraid
11:32
Speaker 2: to say what we wanted and to find other people
11:34
Speaker 2: who agreed with what we said, you know, and who
11:39
Speaker 2: wanted to help us so to organize with us and
11:41
Speaker 2: are helping and organizing going into November. I think has
11:45
Speaker 2: been one of the most rewarding things. In other words,
11:47
Speaker 2: telling the truth and finding other people who are unafraid
11:50
Speaker 2: to tell the truth, and also breaking some axioms from
11:53
Speaker 2: people who are like, you know what, I actually agree
11:56
Speaker 2: with you, and maybe I was just too afraid to
11:58
Speaker 2: say it or even think it until you said it publicly,
12:02
Speaker 2: you know. And I got a lot of flak from
12:05
Speaker 2: debates that I did. I was like denouncing the Democratic
12:10
Speaker 2: Party because they didn't stop the war in Iran. They
12:13
Speaker 2: could have had a war Powers resolution, and my opponent,
12:18
Speaker 2: Michael Blake, some Democrats stoods that they threw in the
12:21
Speaker 2: race to confuse voters. They he was saying, oh, you're lying.
12:26
Speaker 2: The Democratic Party is not as bad as the Republican Party,
12:30
Speaker 2: and so you know, anyway.
12:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things that you are well known
12:38
Speaker 1: for on social media is your intervention. So if you
12:42
Speaker 1: just run through the list, aosa, that's Alexandria or okay,
12:48
Speaker 1: your corte. Sorry if I'm pronounced that wrong, Mike Pompeo,
12:51
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, Ritchie Torres, of course. But then also editors
12:56
Speaker 1: of the New York Times and writers in Washington Posts
12:59
Speaker 1: and whatnot. Does that type of intervention where basically you're
13:05
Speaker 1: standing up at a public event and challenging them on
13:10
Speaker 1: in the case of the editors, what they're publishing, the
13:13
Speaker 1: case of the politicians, what they do. Does that type
13:16
Speaker 1: of intervention have a role in a campaign like the
13:18
Speaker 1: one you're running at the moment.
13:20
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely it does. I mean it's it's what gave
13:23
Speaker 2: us the credibility to run two years ago and this
13:26
Speaker 2: year as well, and it's one of the reasons why
13:29
Speaker 2: we have the support base that we do. You know,
13:32
Speaker 2: It's one thing to go out there and posture, you know,
13:37
Speaker 2: we want change, we want this, we want that. But
13:39
Speaker 2: I think a big problem right now is people who
13:42
Speaker 2: want credibility from politicians that is very difficult to find,
13:46
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, alling politician is just the norm
13:50
Speaker 2: these days, and people know they can't actually trust anyone.
13:53
Speaker 2: So you know, what do you do that puts that
13:59
Speaker 2: lends credibility. And when people see that I have gone
14:03
Speaker 2: after everyone, you know you name them AOC, from AOC
14:08
Speaker 2: to Mike Pompeo to Kamala Harris, which you know, to
14:12
Speaker 2: anybody who's watching this for the first time would think, well,
14:15
Speaker 2: wait a minute, what do they all have in common?
14:17
Speaker 2: Then they all have in common as war to varying degrees, right,
14:21
Speaker 2: you know AOC. I mean, if I give her the
14:23
Speaker 2: benefit of the DEO, you know, was given some briefings
14:26
Speaker 2: by the intelligence agencies and told and this is why
14:28
Speaker 2: you need to give millions of dollars to Ukra, billions
14:31
Speaker 2: of dollars to Ukraine because Putin is an evil person, YadA, YadA, YadA,
14:35
Speaker 2: and you have to go and fight them off. And
14:37
Speaker 2: so this is this is a just war. What she had,
14:40
Speaker 2: I mean, she has, you know, advisors and foreign policy
14:44
Speaker 2: that you know, have justified why she should give money
14:47
Speaker 2: to Israel, why she should give money to Ukraine on
14:50
Speaker 2: the basis of defense spending. But regardless, Yeah, and so
14:54
Speaker 2: people see that I've gone after her, and you know
14:57
Speaker 2: some lesser but you know, big names in the progressive
15:01
Speaker 2: wing of politics like Jamal Bowman. And I even went
15:04
Speaker 2: after this the minority leader of the Democratic Party, Jakim Jeffries,
15:09
Speaker 2: specifically on the nord Stream and this was one of
15:11
Speaker 2: the bigger ones where I confronted him, you know, by
15:14
Speaker 2: going up to him and saying, you know, if this
15:17
Speaker 2: is true what Seymour Hirsch's reporting that we blew up
15:20
Speaker 2: the nord Stream pipeline, are you going to put an
15:22
Speaker 2: inquiry into this? And he responded by saying, we support
15:25
Speaker 2: President Biden in the war against Ukraine. And so then I,
15:30
Speaker 2: you know, I had confronted him by by just yelling
15:32
Speaker 2: at him and telling him to cut the crap. And
15:35
Speaker 2: we you know, I was dragged out of there too.
15:38
Speaker 2: But people see those videos, people see the non violent,
15:41
Speaker 2: direct creative action that we take, and they say, okay, yeah,
15:44
Speaker 2: this definitely lends legitimacy to this guy. Also because it's
15:49
Speaker 2: another reason why people are inclined to trust us, because
15:54
Speaker 2: they know that what I think. People know what I think,
15:58
Speaker 2: and I could have, you know, said at any point,
16:02
Speaker 2: well that was the past, that was the politics of
16:04
Speaker 2: the past. That's you know, the radicalness. You know, there's
16:08
Speaker 2: a time and place for it, and now's the time
16:10
Speaker 2: to move on. And I didn't. And so a lot
16:13
Speaker 2: of people thought this guy, you know, because he did this,
16:17
Speaker 2: and because the other thing was I was telling other
16:18
Speaker 2: people they need to do this too, And actually us
16:22
Speaker 2: running in the way we did was another form of
16:25
Speaker 2: intervention of that as well, where we thought, okay, like
16:29
Speaker 2: we are now running you know, this campaign, which is
16:33
Speaker 2: another form of that intervention where I stand up and
16:36
Speaker 2: I confront these politicians because this is a way of
16:42
Speaker 2: getting in front of you know, voters, of getting the press.
16:46
Speaker 2: And one one thing I'll say on that too, And
16:49
Speaker 2: maybe you had already had a question about this, but
16:51
Speaker 2: like the you know, we ran two years ago as independence,
16:55
Speaker 2: we weren't sure what kind of publicity we would get.
16:58
Speaker 2: We certainly got a whole lot more of it this
17:00
Speaker 2: time around when we ran in the Democratic primary then
17:03
Speaker 2: we did two years ago. But to continue that that,
17:08
Speaker 2: you know, you know, bringing it up a notch of
17:11
Speaker 2: that tension that I was talking about with the first time,
17:14
Speaker 2: you know, about how you have to make these issues
17:16
Speaker 2: so ugly that people can't ignore it. That's what the
17:19
Speaker 2: interventions did, and so the running in Congress seemed to
17:24
Speaker 2: be taking it a step up from just confronting them
17:27
Speaker 2: to like, now I'm threatening to take your seat. I'm
17:29
Speaker 2: threatening to go in the Congress where you get away
17:32
Speaker 2: with all of your crimes, and we intend to intervene
17:35
Speaker 2: there as well. And two years ago we had done
17:38
Speaker 2: some interventions, like when we confronted Matthew Pottinger at the
17:42
Speaker 2: Asia Society, who was like this big State Department guy
17:45
Speaker 2: who was egging for war with China. And I was
17:49
Speaker 2: a candidate then, you know, and that was another reason
17:51
Speaker 2: why a lot of people were supporting me, because they
17:54
Speaker 2: there was some fear that I would stop doing those
17:56
Speaker 2: interventions if I were to run as a candidate. Now
18:00
Speaker 2: it's not true at all. I'm happy to keep doing
18:02
Speaker 2: the interventions and will continue to do the interventions. One
18:06
Speaker 2: thing we found is that a lot of the New
18:07
Speaker 2: York politicians have decided to not do town halls. They
18:11
Speaker 2: just don't. I mean, maybe I'm missing them, or I
18:14
Speaker 2: know they do telethon town halls now and they screen
18:17
Speaker 2: everybody who asks a question beforehand, so it's kind of crazy.
18:21
Speaker 1: But yeah, yes, well yeah, this is a I mean,
18:27
Speaker 1: this is one of the aspects of us politics we
18:30
Speaker 1: just don't have. We don't have these kinds of public
18:33
Speaker 1: talenthole meetings in the UK. So it is an opportunity
18:36
Speaker 1: you certainly have. It's much harder here. But on your
18:40
Speaker 1: campaign website then you have your bidler, you're the midline,
18:47
Speaker 1: you're using theirs. Declare independence?
18:48
Speaker 2: Now?
18:48
Speaker 1: Is that? Is that independence from the mainstream political parties
18:52
Speaker 1: or who have you got in mind when you're asking
18:56
Speaker 1: people to declare independence?
18:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, first of all, you know, it's not
19:01
Speaker 2: just yet, it includes that, it includes that, but it's
19:03
Speaker 2: really about declaring independence from the forces that want you
19:08
Speaker 2: to have your mind in a trap. Right. It's one
19:11
Speaker 2: thing to say I'm not part of any political party,
19:14
Speaker 2: but truthfully, we say declare your independence. We're saying declare
19:18
Speaker 2: your freedom again, declare your sovereignty again from how they
19:22
Speaker 2: want you to think. And so it's not just the
19:24
Speaker 2: major political parties. It's you know, how they have you
19:27
Speaker 2: thinking about the war with Ukraine and Russia, you know,
19:30
Speaker 2: or you know how you have to support defensive aid
19:33
Speaker 2: to Israel. Basically, we think that a lot of people's
19:37
Speaker 2: minds are in a trap right now. Where they're sort
19:39
Speaker 2: of stuck on what they see, you know, in their
19:42
Speaker 2: phone screens nowadays, as opposed to being able to think
19:46
Speaker 2: for themselves. So you know, yes, of course it's declare
19:50
Speaker 2: your independence from the two parties, but it's also declare
19:53
Speaker 2: your independence from the stranglehold of who controls the narrative
19:58
Speaker 2: of what you're allowed to believe, even what you're allowed
20:01
Speaker 2: to think.
20:03
Speaker 1: And how do people do that?
20:05
Speaker 2: Well, one of the ways to do that is by
20:08
Speaker 2: And this is why I really like declare your independence
20:11
Speaker 2: because and we had the subjunctive play on it, which
20:15
Speaker 2: is declaring your independence. So you have to actually go
20:20
Speaker 2: out and intervene. For one, you have to actually do
20:23
Speaker 2: something out of the norm, because it's one thing that
20:25
Speaker 2: just complain and say everything's messed up, but if you're
20:29
Speaker 2: not taking any kind of action. I believe, I believe
20:33
Speaker 2: that freedom is the ability to make people free, and
20:36
Speaker 2: that means you have to go and take some sort
20:38
Speaker 2: of action where you're interacting with other people and challenging them.
20:44
Speaker 2: You know, you have to go out and you have
20:46
Speaker 2: to talk to other people. You have to go out
20:48
Speaker 2: and share things that changed your mind or will really
20:52
Speaker 2: make you think. You know, a lot of people think
20:54
Speaker 2: that that that, you know, getting somebody to think differently
20:58
Speaker 2: or getting you know, if you just explained your argument,
21:01
Speaker 2: you know that somebody's mind would change. That's not true.
21:04
Speaker 2: The way you change somebody's mind, the way you actually
21:08
Speaker 2: declare your independence, the way you actually go out and
21:12
Speaker 2: and and be able to get somebody to be free,
21:18
Speaker 2: is you have to challenge them. You have to if
21:21
Speaker 2: it gets into an argument, it gets to an argument.
21:24
Speaker 2: It's not pleasant, is my point, you know, because people
21:28
Speaker 2: get very comfortable in how they think and how they
21:30
Speaker 2: perceive and how they you know, believe certain things. And
21:33
Speaker 2: it's your job to be as Socrates was, you know,
21:36
Speaker 2: a mosquito on the donkey's ass, and just constantly annoy them,
21:40
Speaker 2: you know, by asking them questions, by provoking them, and
21:44
Speaker 2: by as you know, I keep bringing this this idea
21:46
Speaker 2: of tension back up in the mind over and over
21:49
Speaker 2: and over again, where you just have to not let
21:52
Speaker 2: people get away with the lies they tell themselves about,
21:55
Speaker 2: you know, the condition and the state of the world
21:58
Speaker 2: they're in. Because people live very you know, secluded lives.
22:02
Speaker 2: They live in bubbles where they don't want to deal
22:05
Speaker 2: with the everyday realities of the world. And so the
22:08
Speaker 2: way in which you declare your independence is first of all,
22:11
Speaker 2: you recognize, okay, I may have been living in a bubble.
22:14
Speaker 2: But even then you have to go and make other
22:17
Speaker 2: people declare their independence by provoking them in a similar
22:22
Speaker 2: way that was done to you, or in a way
22:24
Speaker 2: where you're just talking to people questioning things, and you
22:27
Speaker 2: just have to continue to do it. That's the only
22:29
Speaker 2: way in which you can ever be free from this
22:32
Speaker 2: sort of you know, oligarchical system that controls the way
22:36
Speaker 2: or tries to control the way people think.
22:39
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, pet I know that my challenge to that
22:41
Speaker 1: person is the right challenge.
22:44
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I think you have to, first
22:47
Speaker 2: of all, know if you are if you're having the
22:55
Speaker 2: effect where basically you're engaging in a fruit dialogue where
23:01
Speaker 2: you know, sort of like you're asking me, well, how
23:02
Speaker 2: do I know this is the right way to do it?
23:05
Speaker 2: First of all, you have to take a there's a
23:07
Speaker 2: there's a there's a way to do it where you
23:08
Speaker 2: take an issue that is so ugly, Like first of all,
23:11
Speaker 2: you take Palestine, you take Israel, and you say to
23:15
Speaker 2: somebody you know, but don't you think it's kind of
23:17
Speaker 2: crazy that we are massacring children. And you know, usually
23:22
Speaker 2: people will say, well, you know, either they'll agree with
23:24
Speaker 2: you now because of the how how the environment has
23:27
Speaker 2: shifted on how the truth is just so ugly you
23:29
Speaker 2: can't really dress it up. People would say, you know, well,
23:32
Speaker 2: Israel has a right to defend itself. Okay, even if
23:35
Speaker 2: you did believe that, you know, how does massacring eighty
23:38
Speaker 2: thousand people You're telling me they were all Hamas. You're
23:41
Speaker 2: telling me they were all the combatants that you know,
23:44
Speaker 2: supposedly went out and committed a terrorist action on October seventh,
23:48
Speaker 2: you know, And and you just have to you just
23:51
Speaker 2: have to continue to poke at people. I mean, you know,
23:53
Speaker 2: I have this this where are people confronting the reality
23:58
Speaker 2: And are they getting angry because they think you're lying
24:02
Speaker 2: to them or because you're contradicting them, or are they
24:07
Speaker 2: just you know, trying to deflect and say yeah, I agree,
24:10
Speaker 2: and then you know they're getting back into this sort
24:12
Speaker 2: of comfortable corner. The point is you have to get
24:15
Speaker 2: people uncomfortable. You just do. And there's a couple of
24:17
Speaker 2: ways to do it. Also, I mean, there's the direct
24:20
Speaker 2: confrontational way, but people don't often like that. And then
24:22
Speaker 2: there's also the way through humor. You know, George Carlin
24:26
Speaker 2: was really and a few other people were really. Dave
24:28
Speaker 2: Chappelle now is very effective at this where he's able
24:33
Speaker 2: to give you truths that may be uncomfortable to people
24:36
Speaker 2: who've been living in these uncomfortable troops, but he delivers
24:39
Speaker 2: it in a way in which you're laughing, and because
24:41
Speaker 2: they're laughing, you know, you're able to think about it
24:43
Speaker 2: more in a comfortable, relaxed way and say, you know what, yeah,
24:45
Speaker 2: that is true. So to an extent, there's, you know,
24:49
Speaker 2: both the drama of it and then there's a comedic
24:53
Speaker 2: aspect of it too, which is why I think stuff
24:56
Speaker 2: like Shakespeare works so well at in notating a lot
25:00
Speaker 2: of people from you know thinking in binary thinking or
25:05
Speaker 2: anything like that, you know, which I think I just
25:07
Speaker 2: made a discovery as to why he has the dramas
25:10
Speaker 2: and the comedies though, you know, because they, I mean,
25:13
Speaker 2: because both of them get at something that's tragic in
25:16
Speaker 2: the case of something like Hamlet or even Romeo and Juliet,
25:20
Speaker 2: about the society as a whole and the conditions of
25:22
Speaker 2: society that create the scenarios in them, and the comedies
25:27
Speaker 2: function in a similar way, but just in a uh,
25:32
Speaker 2: in a way in which you can it's not as
25:34
Speaker 2: harsh and you can actually laugh about some of these problems.
25:37
Speaker 1: So but the bottom line is you're going out there,
25:40
Speaker 1: you're making other people uncomfortable, but actually you've got to
25:43
Speaker 1: be comfortable with being uncomfortable yourself.
25:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's something that I struggle with too, with
25:48
Speaker 2: being a politician. Also, it's like trying to figure out
25:51
Speaker 2: that line of like, well, you know, and this is
25:55
Speaker 2: you know, would be my advice to other people who
25:56
Speaker 2: are who would want to do a similar thing too.
25:58
Speaker 2: It's like, don't worry about how you're perceived as a politician.
26:03
Speaker 2: You know, you're there to make people uncomfortable. You're there
26:05
Speaker 2: to tell the truth no matter what, and sometimes sometimes
26:10
Speaker 2: the truth can be the thing you're not supposed to say.
26:13
Speaker 2: Like I'll give you a good example. I had a
26:16
Speaker 2: debate between myself and a man named Michael Blake, who
26:19
Speaker 2: was also running against Richie Torres. And for some context,
26:23
Speaker 2: this guy, Michael Blake was the former vice chair of
26:26
Speaker 2: the Democratic National Committee, and you know, they threw him
26:31
Speaker 2: in this race to try to confuse people as to well,
26:35
Speaker 2: who's the real anti genocide vote, who's the real anti
26:39
Speaker 2: Torus vote? And for more context, this guy, Michael Blake
26:43
Speaker 2: wasn't even talking about Gaza or the genocide until he
26:48
Speaker 2: declared his candidacy against Richie Torres in December of twenty
26:54
Speaker 2: twenty five. In fact, he had run for mayor against
26:59
Speaker 2: zamamd that same year, twenty twenty five, and he was
27:04
Speaker 2: calling himself the most pro Israel candidate. So he was
27:07
Speaker 2: clearly like, you know, just full of it. Regardless in
27:10
Speaker 2: a debate, you know, I had said something like, of course,
27:16
Speaker 2: I'm fed up with the Democratic Party. They give us
27:19
Speaker 2: these warmongering candidates like Kamala Harris, and he just attacks
27:24
Speaker 2: me by saying, look at that this man does not
27:28
Speaker 2: support black women running for president. See. So the truth
27:34
Speaker 2: there was Kamala Harris is a warmongering buffoon who should
27:37
Speaker 2: not be in who should not have been in the presidency,
27:41
Speaker 2: and that she was not a good candidate. In his
27:43
Speaker 2: response is he has to because it's true. He can't
27:47
Speaker 2: say no, that's not true. He says, oh, so you
27:50
Speaker 2: don't support black women, right, And he was a professional
27:54
Speaker 2: charlattan and a professional, so sophist and you know, but
27:58
Speaker 2: other people on the debate who were watching it, some
28:01
Speaker 2: of them reached out to me afterwards and said, you
28:03
Speaker 2: know what, You're right. You know, I was upset with
28:05
Speaker 2: the fact that the Democratic Party gave us Kamala Harris
28:08
Speaker 2: when they could have given us, you know, anyone else
28:11
Speaker 2: who wasn't in the middle of blowing up children and
28:17
Speaker 2: was in a position to do something about it, and
28:19
Speaker 2: instead decided to pander to the Israeli lobby in order
28:23
Speaker 2: to get these votes in order to get in and didn't.
28:27
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, well, look, let's come back to the
28:32
Speaker 1: current campaign then, and so what are the main issues
28:37
Speaker 1: that you're talking about.
28:40
Speaker 2: Well, one of the main issues we're talking about right now,
28:43
Speaker 2: even before we get into my platform, is completely flipping
28:47
Speaker 2: the Congress upside down, because if I were elected, I
28:51
Speaker 2: would be only one of four hundred and thirty five
28:54
Speaker 2: Congress members who would have a vote on any sort
28:57
Speaker 2: of legislation. Now, how do you actually get something through
29:01
Speaker 2: a government where most of the members of Congress are
29:07
Speaker 2: bought by some kind of corporation or some kind of
29:10
Speaker 2: corporate lobby in one way or another, whether that's the
29:13
Speaker 2: American Israeli Political Affairs Committee, or that's you know, like
29:18
Speaker 2: these these big pharmaceutical companies, these healthcare insurance companies, or
29:22
Speaker 2: it's Wall Street, or it's the military Industrial Complex or
29:26
Speaker 2: the various different war lobby firms. I think the first
29:31
Speaker 2: thing is to replace the entire Congress. You know, I
29:35
Speaker 2: absolutely want to do that. And I got a lot
29:38
Speaker 2: of flak for that too, apparently because I said the
29:41
Speaker 2: entire Congress should be replaced by twenty five to thirty
29:44
Speaker 2: five year olds, and my opponent, Michael Blake said, look
29:46
Speaker 2: at that, he says he wants to replace AOC And
29:49
Speaker 2: I said, yes, I do, absolutely do want to replace
29:53
Speaker 2: Alexandria Cosio Cortes. And he said, I just wanted for
29:56
Speaker 2: the record, he is nodding his head. Yes, absolutely, was
30:01
Speaker 2: like smiling and whatnot. But yeah, I think, first of all,
30:04
Speaker 2: my biggest thing is replace the entire Congress with people
30:08
Speaker 2: who are twenty five to thirty five years old. A
30:10
Speaker 2: lot of people would say, well, you know, is that viable?
30:13
Speaker 2: Is that possible? It'd better be, because you know, the
30:16
Speaker 2: entire Congress, including the Senate, is bought and paid for,
30:19
Speaker 2: and anybody who's gone through that system to get to
30:22
Speaker 2: where they are has had to make some compromise in
30:26
Speaker 2: some way or another in order to actually be able
30:30
Speaker 2: to be there and stay there. That's the other thing too.
30:33
Speaker 2: They might let you be there, but in order to
30:35
Speaker 2: stay there, you have to do some certain certain things.
30:37
Speaker 2: Like this guy, what was his name, Madison Cawthorne, I
30:40
Speaker 2: think he was a Republican congressman. I think down in
30:45
Speaker 2: Georgia or South Carolina, one of these southern states. Went
30:48
Speaker 2: in Florida, and he was he was elected as a
30:51
Speaker 2: Republican in the Congress, and about three to four months
30:56
Speaker 2: into being a congress member, he just starts talking of
31:00
Speaker 2: about the fact that, wait a minute, why are my
31:01
Speaker 2: Republican colleagues inviting me to parties with strippers and cocaine.
31:07
Speaker 2: So he said that all of a sudden, there was
31:11
Speaker 2: an immediate smear campaign against the poor man where the
31:15
Speaker 2: old pictures were coming up where he was horsing around
31:18
Speaker 2: with his male friends, and they were insinuating, oh, you know,
31:21
Speaker 2: he might be gay, which in the Southern states that's
31:25
Speaker 2: a death sentence to you. You know, there's no way
31:27
Speaker 2: this guy could hold public office, which was absolutely outrageous,
31:31
Speaker 2: and you know, he was being very clear, they're coming
31:33
Speaker 2: after me because I refused to partake in their debauchery
31:36
Speaker 2: and their vices of you know, doing cocaine and hanging
31:39
Speaker 2: out with strippers. And that was it, and he lost
31:42
Speaker 2: his reelection. He wasn't allowed back in see because so
31:45
Speaker 2: my point is, there's a process where you get elected.
31:47
Speaker 2: You're putting an environment where you're supposed to do something incriminating.
31:51
Speaker 2: You're supposed to do something that you know, makes you
31:55
Speaker 2: compromise your morals, something that makes you chain who you
32:01
Speaker 2: are in some way so that they can hold this
32:04
Speaker 2: against you forever. So that's the first thing people need
32:08
Speaker 2: to realize about the Congress.
32:10
Speaker 1: You got it right, but let's just investigate that a
32:13
Speaker 1: little bit, a little bit. You know, you're twenty seven
32:16
Speaker 1: years old, I believe, but you have had quite a
32:21
Speaker 1: different education than others are people. Is there a twenty
32:29
Speaker 1: five year a thirty five year old constituency there that
32:32
Speaker 1: would actually be capable of doing the job.
32:35
Speaker 2: We would need to create it, I mean, to be
32:37
Speaker 2: honest with you, you'd have to get the high school
32:39
Speaker 2: students right now. And yes, you know I did. I
32:41
Speaker 2: grew up with the Schiller Institute and the Laruche organization
32:44
Speaker 2: that very much shaped a lot of my education, especially
32:49
Speaker 2: in my high school years, because I've been with them
32:51
Speaker 2: since I was in tenth grade here, since I was
32:54
Speaker 2: about fourteen fifteen years old, where I was given a
32:58
Speaker 2: classical education, and so putting that education to work through
33:04
Speaker 2: you know what is now political activism, which I think
33:07
Speaker 2: should just be humanity. You know, finding out that some
33:10
Speaker 2: of the greatest classical authors, greatest classical composers, were all
33:15
Speaker 2: involved in the shaping of revolutions, this shaping of government,
33:21
Speaker 2: and of course also you know, some of the greatest
33:23
Speaker 2: mathematicians that ever lived, like Leibniz, who I heard could
33:26
Speaker 2: have been the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the
33:31
Speaker 2: time that you know he had. You know that a
33:35
Speaker 2: lot of these people had achieved in some way some
33:39
Speaker 2: political victory that had changed the trajectory of the country. Uh,
33:44
Speaker 2: and that it was because they were rooted in this
33:47
Speaker 2: humanity first vision, in this humanity first sort of curriculum
33:53
Speaker 2: that you know, we do things because and we you know,
33:56
Speaker 2: what does it mean to be a human being? And
33:58
Speaker 2: that why is that a great thing to be created
34:01
Speaker 2: in the living image of God? And therefore what kind
34:03
Speaker 2: of a society do you need that can foster so
34:06
Speaker 2: that everybody can have the ability to develop their creative
34:11
Speaker 2: potential to the fullest. I thought, you know, like wow, okay,
34:15
Speaker 2: And this is how people used to think during the
34:17
Speaker 2: Renaissance and after the Renaissance, and there was a conscious
34:21
Speaker 2: effort to kill that in the late nineteenth century and
34:27
Speaker 2: early twentieth century, where there were attempts to say, all right, well,
34:30
Speaker 2: we've reached the apotheosis of what good art is, like
34:33
Speaker 2: Beethoven was the apotheosis. So now we need to go
34:36
Speaker 2: into a different direction. We need to do things that
34:38
Speaker 2: are different for the sake of doing things that are different.
34:41
Speaker 2: And it led to a degradation of culture. So for
34:44
Speaker 2: the last one hundred years or so, we've been in
34:46
Speaker 2: a steady decline of good culture, and we haven't been
34:49
Speaker 2: able to replicate genius in the way we were doing it,
34:52
Speaker 2: you know, two three hundred years ago, because there's been
34:55
Speaker 2: a conscious and deliberate effort not to And so you
34:58
Speaker 2: would need to revive that. You would need to revive
35:02
Speaker 2: that idea that genius can be taught. That's the only
35:07
Speaker 2: way in which you can create a constituency of twenty
35:09
Speaker 2: five thirty five year olds in the United States, because
35:12
Speaker 2: right now we don't have it. We don't have a
35:15
Speaker 2: humanity first curriculum. In fact, we have a curriculum that
35:18
Speaker 2: teaches you that you know, if you you know, breathe
35:21
Speaker 2: too much, you know, and you're spreading too much carbon
35:24
Speaker 2: dioxide into the air, that you're going to be the
35:26
Speaker 2: reason why the earth blows up and boils over, and
35:29
Speaker 2: that you know, you being here is actually a plague,
35:32
Speaker 2: and you should be resentful for the fact that you're alive.
35:35
Speaker 2: But suicide is wrong. So here are some ways you
35:37
Speaker 2: can mitigate your impact on the environment. You know, when
35:41
Speaker 2: you already do that to a child, you've basically like
35:43
Speaker 2: done some damage there that will be very difficult to reconcile.
35:49
Speaker 2: So what we see right now with the twenty five
35:51
Speaker 2: to thirty five year old constituency and even younger, is
35:56
Speaker 2: that what you can't kill and what you can't destroy
35:59
Speaker 2: is the pulse for good. The young people now recognize
36:04
Speaker 2: that there is a genocide happening in Godz and they
36:07
Speaker 2: recognize that war, you know, is intentional, not a not
36:12
Speaker 2: something that's inevitable, and so you can't kill that impulse
36:17
Speaker 2: in a human being for there to want to be good,
36:21
Speaker 2: and that's a great thing because it goes to show
36:23
Speaker 2: you that the human spirit is truly indomitable. And you
36:26
Speaker 2: can brainwash generations all you want, but every new generation
36:32
Speaker 2: will always strive towards the good in the best way
36:35
Speaker 2: that they can, in the limitations of their culture and
36:39
Speaker 2: society that they've grown up in. And so we see
36:42
Speaker 2: that with these new candidates that are winning and running.
36:45
Speaker 2: You know, like the person I'm mostly excited about is
36:47
Speaker 2: Dadi A Lisa ive Le Chevalier, who's thirty one years old,
36:52
Speaker 2: who just recently beat an incumbent Adriano Espayat in the
36:56
Speaker 2: thirteenth congressional district, just one district over, and you know her,
37:02
Speaker 2: and I am excited about people like Zora Mamdani and
37:05
Speaker 2: Claire Valdez and this woman in Colorado who's twenty nine
37:09
Speaker 2: years old, her name is Meilot Kiros. You know, we're
37:12
Speaker 2: we know, we see this upsurge of these younger candidates,
37:15
Speaker 2: the younger insurgent candidates in the Democratic Party taking over.
37:19
Speaker 2: The impulse to do good is there, the impulse to
37:23
Speaker 2: call out what's wrong is there? That's a great thing
37:26
Speaker 2: and that's a good jumping off point. You know. My
37:29
Speaker 2: only criticism would be, well, now now that you're in power,
37:32
Speaker 2: about to have power in January, what then there for
37:36
Speaker 2: is your actual solution? What's the path towards making our
37:41
Speaker 2: society have this cultural renaissance but also in a physical
37:45
Speaker 2: renaissance as well, you know, because the other parts of
37:47
Speaker 2: my platform are about rebuilding the entire United States back
37:51
Speaker 2: to a manufacturing capability. And you know, they don't have
37:56
Speaker 2: those kind of ideas or plans. You know, they say
37:59
Speaker 2: things I like like medical care for all. I agree,
38:01
Speaker 2: you know, but do they actually have a plan to
38:03
Speaker 2: start manufacturing steel again in New York City where one
38:07
Speaker 2: steel plant was giving out fifty thousand metric tons of steel?
38:11
Speaker 2: You know? Do they have plans to build ten new
38:13
Speaker 2: cities in ten years? I don't necessarily think so. At
38:17
Speaker 2: the same time, I'm really excited and optimistic because I
38:21
Speaker 2: know they could probably be organized to understand it and say,
38:23
Speaker 2: you know what, this makes a lot of sense because
38:26
Speaker 2: they're not bought by corporate lobbyists, they're not bought by
38:29
Speaker 2: special interests, you know, I and will they will be
38:33
Speaker 2: tested morally as well. But it's also why it's important
38:37
Speaker 2: that we have to continue to go at the younger people,
38:41
Speaker 2: even like I had high school interns who couldn't even
38:44
Speaker 2: vote for me because they were too young. But they're
38:46
Speaker 2: here in the Bronx, and you know, it's important that
38:49
Speaker 2: we continue to give them that education so that if
38:52
Speaker 2: they ever get to any kind of position power where
38:55
Speaker 2: they are being tested morally about what to do next
38:58
Speaker 2: or how to compromise, they have this background that's rooted
39:02
Speaker 2: in a humanity first. You know, you know how they
39:05
Speaker 2: talk about America first, I'm all about humanity first. You know,
39:08
Speaker 2: they have this humanity first background within them where they
39:12
Speaker 2: can look at a problem and say, well, I'm going
39:14
Speaker 2: to tackle it from the standpoint of does it benefit
39:17
Speaker 2: humanity they do this? Will it lead to stopping the wars?
39:20
Speaker 2: Will it lead to development for all of mankind?
39:24
Speaker 1: The last time we were having a conversation like this,
39:27
Speaker 1: you said a little bit about the Bronx and the
39:29
Speaker 1: issues that the Bronx faces. I can't imagine the situation
39:34
Speaker 1: has improved in the last year or two about how
39:38
Speaker 1: engaged are people in the Bronx who are maybe on
39:42
Speaker 1: a day to day basis, dealing with you know, some
39:45
Speaker 1: very local issues. How engaged are they in some of
39:49
Speaker 1: these broader topics that you that you discuss.
39:52
Speaker 2: They are You would be surprised. A lot of people
39:56
Speaker 2: are engaged, but they're they're they're not going to you know.
40:01
Speaker 2: You know, I know it because I go up and
40:03
Speaker 2: down the buildings, I talk to people in the street.
40:05
Speaker 2: They know very well what's going on. And then you
40:08
Speaker 2: tell them, okay, and that's why we can't vote for
40:10
Speaker 2: this guy. It's like, oh, voting, you want me to
40:12
Speaker 2: vote now, I'm not going to do that. Voting. Voting
40:14
Speaker 2: doesn't work. And then, you know, the one that hits
40:17
Speaker 2: me the hardest is people who's like, I've been I
40:19
Speaker 2: voted for fifty years, nothing changed, It's only gotten worse.
40:24
Speaker 2: Don't tell me about voting, you know. And sometimes it
40:27
Speaker 2: can be very difficult to look at that person and say, well,
40:29
Speaker 2: don't worry, I'm different or you know, because in one sense,
40:34
Speaker 2: it's like how many times have they heard that before?
40:39
Speaker 2: You know? So my job isn't to tell people I'm different.
40:41
Speaker 2: I don't do that. I abhor that. In fact, like
40:45
Speaker 2: I saw someone who was interviewing people in the street
40:49
Speaker 2: who was running for office, and they were confronted with this,
40:52
Speaker 2: they were like, well, you know, they said, so I'm
40:55
Speaker 2: running for this, are you going to vote for me?
40:56
Speaker 2: And the person's like, well, look, I've been I've been
40:58
Speaker 2: voting for such a long time. You know what, why
41:02
Speaker 2: should I vote for you? And that person said, if
41:05
Speaker 2: you vote for me and I'm not good, then you
41:10
Speaker 2: can vote me out. And the irony there was this
41:13
Speaker 2: person is telling you, I don't think voting is going
41:16
Speaker 2: to make my life better. And then this person responds with,
41:20
Speaker 2: well vote for me anyway, and if I'm not good,
41:24
Speaker 2: then vote me out. So think the action that this
41:27
Speaker 2: person is saying they're not going to do and they
41:29
Speaker 2: don't think it's working. Is you're saying, oh, well that's
41:32
Speaker 2: the solution. No. No, we are saying that the people
41:35
Speaker 2: of the Bronx have to organize and stand up irrespective
41:40
Speaker 2: of elections. You know, you take this section two nineteen
41:43
Speaker 2: that's going on right now in the Congress. What are
41:46
Speaker 2: the constituency of the Bronx prepared to do. That's something
41:49
Speaker 2: that we're out doing right now. We go out and
41:51
Speaker 2: we distribute, We talk to the people in our base
41:54
Speaker 2: who are in the Bronx. We brief them on what's
41:56
Speaker 2: going on. I mean, you know, one of the plans
41:58
Speaker 2: we have is maybe we take them the way Washington, DC,
42:01
Speaker 2: go down and talk to the New York delegation. Maybe
42:04
Speaker 2: that's a good idea. You know, how do we get
42:07
Speaker 2: the people of the bronx active so that they can
42:09
Speaker 2: take actions now irrespective of voting, so they realize that
42:14
Speaker 2: they actually have a lot more power and authority than
42:17
Speaker 2: is given to them beyond just voting, you know. And
42:20
Speaker 2: that's one of the things about our campaign is that
42:22
Speaker 2: we have this platform when we're able to talk to people,
42:25
Speaker 2: like we have an excuse to talk to people, we
42:28
Speaker 2: have an excuse to go talk to the voters. But
42:30
Speaker 2: ultimately then we turn it on them and say, now,
42:33
Speaker 2: what are you about to do about the Bronx? You know,
42:36
Speaker 2: maybe you're right, politicians suck and there is no savior
42:39
Speaker 2: that's going to come to save us. So what are
42:41
Speaker 2: you prepared to do in your capacity as a citizen,
42:44
Speaker 2: you know, as as a person who can advocate, as
42:48
Speaker 2: a person who can call up your representatives, as a
42:50
Speaker 2: person who can go and visit your elected officials in Washington,
42:53
Speaker 2: DC or in their offices here.
42:56
Speaker 1: So you better say a little bit more about to
43:01
Speaker 1: nineteen and what that is, just for those that don't know.
43:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Section two nineteen is this provision in the
43:10
Speaker 2: National Defense Something Authorization Authorization Act where it's like a
43:17
Speaker 2: detailed section that goes through how we will merge the
43:21
Speaker 2: intelligence relations between the Israeli government and the United States government.
43:27
Speaker 2: It would create a special liaison between the Israeli and
43:32
Speaker 2: American military. We would share our AI capabilities, our drone capabilities.
43:38
Speaker 2: We would basically be closer to Israel than we were
43:44
Speaker 2: with Great Britain during World War Two. In fact, some
43:47
Speaker 2: even say we would be closer to Israel than we
43:49
Speaker 2: are with the Five Eyes countries and that we are
43:52
Speaker 2: with the NATO countries. You know, it's completely unprecedented that
43:56
Speaker 2: this is happening, and it's just snuck in there in
43:58
Speaker 2: the NDAA bill. And the NDAA is basically what's going
44:04
Speaker 2: to determine the budget for twenty twenty seven to twenty
44:07
Speaker 2: twenty nine. So it's a very big bill and it's
44:10
Speaker 2: something that a lot of people are rightfully raising the
44:16
Speaker 2: alarm on and say like, hey, this is kind of
44:18
Speaker 2: crazy that we are about to merge essentially our military
44:24
Speaker 2: with Israel's in the United States. So there's a fight
44:27
Speaker 2: going on right now in the House of Representatives and
44:30
Speaker 2: also here in the United States with the people. I've
44:34
Speaker 2: seen a lot of people say I've been a lifelong
44:37
Speaker 2: Republican and I'm not going to vote Republican anymore because
44:40
Speaker 2: if they can't even do something as simple as prevent
44:43
Speaker 2: our military from becoming united with Israels, then we don't
44:47
Speaker 2: have a quote Republican party. And I would argue the
44:50
Speaker 2: same thing, just that we don't have a Democratic party.
44:52
Speaker 2: We don't have any parties. We only have a war party.
44:55
Speaker 2: So that's Section two nineteen at a nutshell. And I'm
44:57
Speaker 2: saying that the people of the Bronx and the people
44:59
Speaker 2: of the United States as a whole don't need to
45:01
Speaker 2: wait for a politician to come in and stop it.
45:04
Speaker 2: That they have the ability to organize around it right
45:06
Speaker 2: now if they wanted to to stop Section two nineteen
45:10
Speaker 2: by putting the pressure on their elected officials, by raising hell,
45:14
Speaker 2: by making it so embarrassing that if a politician were
45:18
Speaker 2: to vote to keep that in that they would lose
45:21
Speaker 2: their career instantly, that it would become like condemning yourself
45:25
Speaker 2: to political suicide by voting for that in there.
45:31
Speaker 1: You know, it's really unprecedented that such a provision would
45:36
Speaker 1: be in particularly in the United States. How is it
45:39
Speaker 1: that Israel has achieved this level of control over the
45:44
Speaker 1: actions of US politicians?
45:47
Speaker 2: Weil, there's two ways, and in a sense, there is
45:53
Speaker 2: a sort of like old money and new money kind
45:55
Speaker 2: of way about how they do this, but the tactics
45:58
Speaker 2: are the same. So take my opponent, Richie Torres, for example.
46:01
Speaker 2: He's a good example of how they work. The American
46:05
Speaker 2: Israel Political Affairs Committee invested early in his career. He
46:10
Speaker 2: worked for a local politician here, Assemblyman Vodka when he
46:15
Speaker 2: was sixteen years old, and then he became Vodka's housing
46:19
Speaker 2: director at eighteen years old, you know, very big jump.
46:23
Speaker 2: But it started when he ran for city council in
46:27
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen and he was twenty three years old, and
46:31
Speaker 2: the media was fluffing up my opponent as the youngest
46:34
Speaker 2: ever elected or the youngest member of the city council.
46:38
Speaker 2: You know, he's an up and coming star. So what
46:42
Speaker 2: they did was they got him when he was in
46:44
Speaker 2: the City Council of New York City that they started
46:47
Speaker 2: paying for trips to him to go to Israel. So
46:50
Speaker 2: there are pictures of him in Israel in twenty thirteen,
46:53
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, twenty seventeen, long before he was in the
46:56
Speaker 2: House of Representatives. And then comes twenty twelve when he
47:00
Speaker 2: wants to run for Congress. You know, the person who
47:05
Speaker 2: was in the seat before him is retiring out, and
47:07
Speaker 2: so he says, okay, great, So what do they do?
47:10
Speaker 2: APAC and Wall Street and housing developers give him a
47:14
Speaker 2: ton of money to run against eighteen different people. He
47:19
Speaker 2: gets twenty percent of the vote, which was enough to
47:21
Speaker 2: go to get the majority because there were eighteen people
47:24
Speaker 2: running in the in the primary. So he wins it
47:27
Speaker 2: and he becomes the congressman. So even before he's sworn
47:31
Speaker 2: in as a Congressman, APAC has already tracked him and
47:34
Speaker 2: identified him as somebody in an ally, gave him a
47:37
Speaker 2: bunch of money during his city council reelections, and has
47:41
Speaker 2: even funded his House of Representatives career. So I you know,
47:47
Speaker 2: then you analyze how they work and you realize this
47:50
Speaker 2: is the kind of apparatus they have set out around
47:53
Speaker 2: the entire country. Thomas Massey was one of these people
47:56
Speaker 2: who ranked the alarm for the Republican side. He had said,
48:00
Speaker 2: why are Kentucky state officials going to Israel on Israel's
48:06
Speaker 2: sponsored trips, you know, apax sponsored trips. What does Israel
48:11
Speaker 2: want with Kentucky state representatives? See if they do this,
48:15
Speaker 2: because it's a major apparatus of getting these politicians when
48:20
Speaker 2: they're young and getting them involved now so that they
48:24
Speaker 2: can becoming doctrinated easily. And they go to places in
48:27
Speaker 2: the Israel Tel Aviv, and they'll even take them to
48:30
Speaker 2: places in the West Bank. And see, we acknowledge there's
48:33
Speaker 2: a disparity here, and we hope that when you're in
48:35
Speaker 2: Congress you'll pass the policies that can help this disparity.
48:39
Speaker 2: Or that's the politician side, and then you have the
48:41
Speaker 2: manager side. So for example, there was a guy who
48:45
Speaker 2: is the executive director of this section of the Congress
48:49
Speaker 2: called the Congressional Black Caucus, which is composed of people
48:53
Speaker 2: who are black who are in the Congress, and they
48:57
Speaker 2: have a caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus. Well, they have
49:00
Speaker 2: an individual whose name is escaping me at the moment,
49:03
Speaker 2: who is the executive director, which I didn't even know
49:07
Speaker 2: they had executive directors for caucuses. But he's the executive
49:10
Speaker 2: director of the Congressional Black Caucus, and they you know
49:16
Speaker 2: he and the reason he keme in my radar was
49:19
Speaker 2: because he was attacking me because I said that I
49:22
Speaker 2: would never vote for Hakim Jefferys, a Speaker of the House,
49:25
Speaker 2: in a debate if I was in the Congress. And
49:28
Speaker 2: he started attacking me because I said I would vote
49:31
Speaker 2: for Thomas Massey, and he said, why would you vote
49:33
Speaker 2: for a white supremacist Speaker of the House. So I
49:37
Speaker 2: started looking into this guy's background of who he is.
49:40
Speaker 2: There are articles from twenty thirteen of him being interviewed
49:44
Speaker 2: in Washington, d C. Saying, Yeah, I go to Florida,
49:47
Speaker 2: AMU and APAC paid for my trip to hear to
49:50
Speaker 2: Washington DC. This is the eighth trip I taken to Washington,
49:54
Speaker 2: DC because of a PAC and a pack let me
49:57
Speaker 2: meet President Obama and APAC did this for me. And
50:02
Speaker 2: APAC did that for me, and I love Israel. So
50:05
Speaker 2: you see his career trajectory from a college student who
50:10
Speaker 2: was being shuttle to DC, who got to meet the
50:12
Speaker 2: President of the United States, who got to be in
50:15
Speaker 2: meetings and rooms with other you know, big important officials,
50:19
Speaker 2: and then you see like, oh my god, you know,
50:21
Speaker 2: it's pretty sophisticated apparatus that APEC has where they're getting
50:25
Speaker 2: them when they're young so that they can like Richie Torres,
50:29
Speaker 2: for example, is only thirty five years old with fifteen
50:31
Speaker 2: million dollars in the treasure chest. So they own or
50:35
Speaker 2: they colonized this district because they have a young congressman
50:39
Speaker 2: who's not going to die, you know, for the next
50:42
Speaker 2: forty to fifty years, with a ton of money. So
50:45
Speaker 2: that's how they buy their votes. They invest early. It's
50:49
Speaker 2: like an investor mindset, you know, invest early by low,
50:53
Speaker 2: sell high kind of thing.
50:55
Speaker 1: And is the money coming from Wall Straight or is
50:58
Speaker 1: it coming from the Jewish community? Was it coming from Israel?
51:01
Speaker 1: Where's the money coming from?
51:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of you know a lot of the
51:04
Speaker 2: money I think is coming from you do have elements
51:07
Speaker 2: of it from Israel. You have it from some of
51:10
Speaker 2: these benefactors that support you know, an Israeli open state.
51:15
Speaker 2: It's also like a it's like a self feeding system
51:18
Speaker 2: as well, where you have state department officials, you have
51:23
Speaker 2: the military industrial complex like for example, Lockheed Martin L
51:27
Speaker 2: three Harris and I forgot to throws. I forgot the
51:31
Speaker 2: third one. Are some of Israel's biggest military contractors, so
51:36
Speaker 2: they give a lot of money to the State of
51:37
Speaker 2: Israel and a lot of weapon manufacturings of the State
51:40
Speaker 2: of Israel because they actually get to produce the weapons
51:43
Speaker 2: for Israel, and the United States government gives also goo
51:46
Speaker 2: gobs of money to the Government of Israel. On top
51:50
Speaker 2: of that, you have the billionaires that Israel is supported by,
51:54
Speaker 2: people like Peter Teel and others, and you can look
52:00
Speaker 2: at some of these donations as well. In fact, one
52:02
Speaker 2: of the things that we found out recently is that
52:05
Speaker 2: there's this guy Glenn Dubin, who was an Epstein associate
52:10
Speaker 2: who is a big pro Israel guy, who was funding
52:13
Speaker 2: Richie Torres' career in twenty twenty as well. So you
52:18
Speaker 2: have extensive networks of people who not only get money
52:25
Speaker 2: from the Israeli government who then launder it into APAC,
52:29
Speaker 2: but you have these billionaire typ hedge fund types also
52:33
Speaker 2: that need Israel to exist for one reason or another
52:37
Speaker 2: in their laundering scheme that also funnel money back to
52:41
Speaker 2: APAC and other places. So yeah, I mean think about
52:45
Speaker 2: and Wall Street of course plays a very big role
52:48
Speaker 2: in how that money gets laundered as well, because then
52:51
Speaker 2: you make you look official to these stocks and whatnot.
52:54
Speaker 2: But really it's like a giant melding of illegal money, operations,
53:00
Speaker 2: military money, drug money to some extent, and billionaire money
53:05
Speaker 2: that all gets washed out through some means or another,
53:08
Speaker 2: through some market or another in Israel might be some
53:11
Speaker 2: hub for that, and then it just all gets funneled
53:15
Speaker 2: back into the political apparatus, which is you know, a
53:18
Speaker 2: pack and its respective subsidiaries that exist in different states.
53:22
Speaker 2: And that's just you know, this this system that you know,
53:28
Speaker 2: just upholds this whole thing that is actually not sustainable
53:33
Speaker 2: and will collapse the economy at some point or another.
53:39
Speaker 1: And I apresume anybody that criticizes this regime, yourself or
53:45
Speaker 1: anybody else, immediately gets the antisemitic lebel. Oh.
53:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the ways in which they
53:52
Speaker 2: came after me, especially in January. They you know, published
53:57
Speaker 2: in the Jewish Telegraph Agency and a few other different
54:01
Speaker 2: big outlets that were pro Israel, and even Fox, you
54:06
Speaker 2: know congressional candidate anti Semitic, comes from the Laroche organization,
54:10
Speaker 2: which is you know, foot Pery anti Semitic, and so
54:13
Speaker 2: they did that as a way to poison the well
54:15
Speaker 2: against me. And you know, get people to support Richie
54:19
Speaker 2: Torres by calling me anti Semitic. It doesn't work anymore though,
54:22
Speaker 2: I mean, does it still work in some places, yes,
54:25
Speaker 2: of course, But like nationally, people see what's going on
54:28
Speaker 2: and it's lost its sting. And that's a good thing
54:31
Speaker 2: that it's lost its sting, because you know, people now
54:35
Speaker 2: are willing to support candidates like myself, like Dottie Alisa
54:39
Speaker 2: Claire Valdez or Milett Kiros in Colorado, and you know,
54:42
Speaker 2: Chris Robin Philadelphia and a few other people that you
54:46
Speaker 2: know can look at somebody and say, you're only calling
54:48
Speaker 2: them anti Semitic acause they're telling the truth, not because
54:51
Speaker 2: they're actually saying something that's you know, bigoted and anti Jewish,
54:56
Speaker 2: you know, and they know it's losing its sting, so
55:00
Speaker 2: they have to resort to things like blackmail or you know,
55:03
Speaker 2: in the case of Graham Platner, who I was always
55:06
Speaker 2: iffy about, but you know that they save the best
55:09
Speaker 2: opposition research to the very end. Now these people are
55:13
Speaker 2: calculated and cold.
55:14
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, yeah, well, well look I would say
55:18
Speaker 1: we're just about out of time. But you know, one
55:20
Speaker 1: of the reasons that I really wanted to speak to
55:23
Speaker 1: you again just now, because obviously you're in the run
55:26
Speaker 1: up to the mid terms. Was just to make the
55:30
Speaker 1: point which I think we've made in the course of
55:31
Speaker 1: this conversation that you know, whether or not you're up against,
55:36
Speaker 1: you know, opposition in a political context that has huge budgets,
55:42
Speaker 1: running the type of campaign that you're running is an
55:46
Speaker 1: opportunity or can't be used as an opportunity to make
55:51
Speaker 1: a real difference to how people view the world and
55:53
Speaker 1: how people are viewing the political situation locally and internationally
55:59
Speaker 1: and the actually people shouldn't be pessimistic about the impact
56:04
Speaker 1: that that can have on the people around them. And
56:07
Speaker 1: hopefully you will be an inspiration for people in this
56:10
Speaker 1: country and anybody that's watching this, this this discussion. So
56:15
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you very much. How
56:16
Speaker 1: do people follow what you're doing and you know, what
56:19
Speaker 1: are your thoughts about that?
56:21
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Mike. And you know, because we decided
56:25
Speaker 2: to run in the Democratic primary this time, we were
56:29
Speaker 2: you know, we were interviewed by Univision, which is a big,
56:32
Speaker 2: big media conglomerate for the Hispanic TV network here and
56:36
Speaker 2: the Hispanic Hispanic audience. We were on radio for mainstream
56:41
Speaker 2: programs that we normally wouldn't have been on, you know,
56:44
Speaker 2: and again that was with very little budget. It was
56:46
Speaker 2: just the fact that people perceived us as competition, people
56:50
Speaker 2: perceived us as running, you know, this campaign against this
56:54
Speaker 2: really unpopular incumbent. And I would say that it's also
56:57
Speaker 2: laid the groundwork for other people too to be taken seriously,
57:01
Speaker 2: you know, because of this environment that has been created
57:04
Speaker 2: where people think anything as possible. That means the media
57:08
Speaker 2: and people are more likely to take anybody seriously. Now.
57:12
Speaker 2: And if regular old Joe Schmo like me, who does
57:15
Speaker 2: not come from money, you know, whose mom was a
57:18
Speaker 2: bus aid and my dad's a cook, you know, can
57:21
Speaker 2: come out with this like ability to get the attention
57:25
Speaker 2: of people nationally and internationally, anybody else should be able
57:30
Speaker 2: to do this as well. And if people want to
57:32
Speaker 2: learn more, they can go to vote Vega dot NYC,
57:35
Speaker 2: or they can follow me on social media at vote Vega,
57:38
Speaker 2: vote Vega twenty six on X and just vote Vega
57:40
Speaker 2: everywhere else, TikTok, Instagram, so on and so forth. So yeah,
57:44
Speaker 2: but thank you, Mike, this was this is good.
57:47
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, thank you for joining me today and
57:50
Speaker 1: hopefully it will be quite as long the next time,
57:53
Speaker 1: and really best to luck in the next six months.
57:56
Speaker 2: Thank you kindly, Mike. This was great. Thank you