Latest / It's Open with Ilana Glazer / Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez · It's Open with Ilana Glazer

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow, wow.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, no offense to guests I've had on the show or or will have in the future, but I just interviewed my dream guest, and that is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: O-M-G, it's AOC.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you see AOC doing her thing, messaging so clearly in real time on social media and on uh, you know, going on shows and talking.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: But then to have the privil privilege of meeting her in person, it's the same person.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is very different, I mean, from many famous people you meet, but um, but uh certainly not elected officials.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um AOC uh is the Democratic Congresswoman for New York's 14th district, representing uh parts of the Bronx and Queens.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And she won not initially against a Republican.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: The the big uh the big goalpost she had to hit was winning against an incumbent Democrat, 10-term incumbent Joe Crawley.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when she challenged this guy in 2018 as a former waitress and organizer, the daughter of working-class Puerto Rican parents in the Bronx in Westchester, uh, she won.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: She won 56 points to 43, and then she won the general at 78%.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So AOC is known internationally for fighting for working families, um, a real brawler for real working people.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: She's championed Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and she's aggressively anti-corruption, pro-worker, and anti-establishment.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the news cycle is just uh uh strategically horrific and such an onslaught.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But to see AOC as somebody in power working so hard for you and me and for a better future, that is uh something I'm grateful for, even just from a distance.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: But wow, what a privilege to interview her IRL and up close.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to It's Open with a Long Glazer, and I hope you enjoyed this conversation I had with AOC.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Hi.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining me today.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, thank you for thank you for having me.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I really am.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: AOC, you are a beacon of hope.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: You are a whew, thank the Lord, beacon of hope for, I want to say millennials, but really Americans right now.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: You talk normal, you look normal, looking in your eyes.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, there's not, I can see what this person is feeling.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not saying something different than you're feeling, right?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I I know that you're working for the American people.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um you're di you're a different kind of elected official, one who has lived the life like those of their constituents.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you worked in food service, is that right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I waitressed, I bartended.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my first job um was as a hostess at an Irish pub in suburban uh Westchester when I was in high school.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: But then, yeah, I, you know, in my 20s too, I graduated college during the Great Recession, like a lot of us did.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Job market was brutal.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, my my dad had gotten sick and passed away when I was a teenager while I was in college.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: My mom was a single mom, she cleaned houses, she drove school buses, and we almost uh were on the brink of losing our house.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so at that time, waitressing and bartending, it was fast money.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and in a lot of ways, it paid more than a lot of entry-level work if you had a college degree.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what I did for years to make ends meet, and um yeah, you know, and I I'm I was so distressed during that time.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: A teenager.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry that you that your father passed away that young.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but also um I'm so glad that I went through that in retrospect, even though at the time it was horrible.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: But like I I just wouldn't, I wouldn't be doing what I do, and I wouldn't be able to do what I do if I didn't go through that.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like at the time, and when you're a young person, things happen and they like consume you, but you couldn't have known that it was preparing you to care for millions of people.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and like, you know, you're going through that stuff in your 20s, and someone, someone comes along and they're like, everything happens for a reason.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Or they're like, they're like, you don't know it's gonna work out, like this is preparing you.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when I would hear that stuff, I was just like screw off.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it is rude and diminutive, but it's also like turned out to be true in a way.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: In a way.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: In my case, yeah.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I started busing tables when I was like 12.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, child labor.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why my brother and I like started working so young, but I was like a full-on waitress from 14 to 24 on Long Island where I grew up and in the city.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, by the time I was 24, I was like, I've worked in food service for half of my life.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that was what I how I saved a nest egg to um do comedy.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Truly.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: To like pay some student loans off initially.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like it made and like fast money, you get some on the books and you're making some tips, and it's absolutely it's uh, I mean, it's a I sometimes joke.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I sometimes joke about this with Republicans or other people where I was like, honestly, if we actually had guaranteed healthcare in this country, like I I may still be doing it.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: 100.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Nannying.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I did nannying for a long time.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Bad of a job.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you like, if I just felt had felt a little more stability in being able to go to the doctor.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, be able to save some money, it's it's dignified, good, honest work.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking to people, you're getting out, you have a community.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I totally agree.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Childcare, you know, I have a little kiddo, and I talk to people in childcare who are, you know, I've had have a childcare provider, and it's like this work is typically so um undignified, diminished.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's no uh, you know, the there's that um national domester domestic workers alliance, but there's not really like a unionization around it, but it's great work.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: It feels so good, it's so rewarding.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if there was health care, more people would do it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt really, I like doing the job because in a way, it's like you really feel like you are doing something real, right?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like I work in food, this is what I do.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's there's a lot of skill involved.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Front of house, you know, a lot of order of operations, a lot of management, a lot of like food knowledge.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's I I mean, I love, I really grew to love that industry.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: The way the system is rigged, let's let's talk about it.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the system is rigged for the ultra-wealthy.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you, you know, Bernie Sanders, I think, was the first to puncture through with this messaging to the mainstream, to mainstream America.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you're really his successor.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: You speak in such clear and simple language, so obviously spontaneous, genuine from your lived experience, which is so different.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, I'm laughing, but it's it's honestly terrifying how most uh, I would say the majority of elected officials do not reflect the lived experience of their constituents.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: When did this come into your consciousness, this system being rigged for the ultra-wealthy?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first I want to say in a lot of ways, we're all kind of Bernie's successor.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that this class consciousness that young people have today has been a big part of Bernie's life.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I say that because I know that that is also what he would say, and it's what he wants.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but also, you know, in terms of the class piece, I, you know, to your point, a lot of it just had to do with the experiences of my life, which is the experiences that a lot of people have.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think that so I grew up in a household that was actually not very it was political, but it was not very political at the same time.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like my parents identified as independents, they were very skeptical of the political system.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they always voted for Democrats here in New York for the most part, but they would, you know, it it was it was just a different type of upbringing.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't grow up, I'm not the child of like professors or anything like that.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: My mom, um, my mom cleaned houses growing up.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was born in the South Bronx.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um Where was she born?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: She was born in Puerto Rico.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: She was born in Adecibo, in Puerto Rico.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um, my dad's parents were Puerto Rican.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: And actually they met when he was home visiting family, and she was literally like the girl next door.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: So he was flying home to visit some family in Puerto Rico.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: So cute.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was like literally he was like visiting like an like an older aunt or something like that.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom was literally like the girl next door.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think she was like helping them put up a shelf or something like that.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it's she must be so beautiful.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like God, is that sweet?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're just the best.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so, anyways, like, you know, but they both grew up in just real poverty.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad was born when the Bronx was burning.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason the Bronx was burning was because landlords had determined that their property values, you know, were going down, and they would hire people to set their own buildings on fire to collect on the insurance because that was more valuable than the people inside or the value of a home, you know?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: That is chilling.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's you know, people talk about the Bronx as though it, you know, it it's kind of like people have heard this phrase, the Bronx is burning, and it's just kind of ascribed to like social disorder, but this was actually like a capitalistic crisis.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, and my dad like literally grew up playing in the rubble.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And at six years old, um, he saw all these buildings going down, and he decided that he wanted to help be a person that built them back up.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So at six, he decided he wanted to become an architect.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he went to school, um, New York City public schools, he got into Brooklyn Tech.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um he would like study on the subways, but like he he grew up in like a one-bedroom apartment, five people.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was crazy.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom grew up in um in well, she was originally born in a rural area in Puerto Rico, Uto, and then they moved to this other area of Puerto Rico.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: But like, you know, my parents really, really, really came from nothing.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like so, you know, I grew up around this real fidelity to the American dream.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you work hard, you can make it.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I And they did.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they I mean they did.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: They did.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like my parents, I think about this now.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: My parents, they bought, they bought an apartment in the Bronx in their 20s, and it was like$40,000.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like what?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And like when I say that they did, it's like, but even think about where you got to in your 20s, and you're like, shit, I gotta, I gotta work my ass off to pay my debts and help my mom and all this.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like, you know, this dream, it's like this like loop that is this scam, but then it also is an opportunity.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like you, you are amazing, you have become this beacon of hope and this speaker, and it's like it's confusing.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're so um totally tricked, and we're also like tricked out of our own history of these genocidal frameworks on which our country is born.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But then also there is this opportunity.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's amazing.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I think the um the missing piece is the practicality, the affordability.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I've been thinking lately about messaging of affordability, how this is actually human rights.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Affordability is the on-the-ground, you know, structural, practical, functional framework for human rights.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, well, this is, you know, and there's history with that.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: You have FDR had released an economic bill of rights, and he had released this framework that included things like the right to retire with dignity, health care, which became then the foundations for social security, Medicare, and so on.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's true because what had become the turning point for me was that, you know, my parents had been doing it.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: They came from nothing and they scrapped and they built their way and they worked so hard to the bone.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: But like they were able to do it.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then when my dad got sick, my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer when I was about 16.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we had really struggled our whole life, but like things were just starting, it's like to pay off in a way.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like starting to feel a little stable and things like that.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad got lung cancer.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: He never smoked, it was very, it was just like rare.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm so sorry.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: That is so sad.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and that whole process overnight, right?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, was so vi the process of him getting sick, trying to find treatment, the medical bills.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: He had initially beat his cancer and then it came back.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I was um, when I was uh the first week of my sophomore year in college, um, I basically get the call of like fly home to New York right now, you have to say goodbye to your dad.
• 15:19
  unknown: Damn.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And where did you go to college?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I went to Boston University, and I was the first in my mom's side to ever go to school.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And like I was the first in my family to go to school that was like um you actually like dorm on the campus and stuff like that.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, but it was that whole process because it was like I'm picturing baby AOC.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: That sucks, man.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was really and I was so close to my dad.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was super close to my dad.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so um what was crazy about that moment though, and it was then it was just like that happened overnight.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, my mom was a single mom trying to support two kids on a house cleaner salary.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, this all happened in the fall of 2008, literally while the entire economy was crashing, like at the same time.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized it just became this really stark moment of like we could have done everything that they said.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: You work hard, you get an education, you do everything right, right, and you can get sideswiped, and there is nothing here to really support you.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're not supposed to get a diagnosis, like nobody plans for a diagnosis.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then your whole structure unravels.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: He was 45 when he got diagnosed.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is the age of my husband.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's not quote unquote supposed to happen, right?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's right.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: So then all of us are like one accident away.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then this is happening during the financial crisis.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my dad, he had this conversation with me once.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: This was before he even got a diagnosis, but he was just like he was like, I mean, it's it's so crazy.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: You can get I get like chills thinking about it.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: He was just like, so shortly before he was diagnosed, and I think his intuition just felt like there was something wrong.
• 17:17
  unknown: Wow.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he he we used to have these drives from the Bronx home all the time.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he was like, I want you to know that if anything happens to me, you're in charge, not your mom.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm laughing because I'm like nervous and for clamped when you say that.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's I'm so sorry.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Real eldest daughter stuff, too.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: But he was like, You're in charge.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, not her.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Feminist.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, oh yeah, for sure.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Dad, for sure.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dad was big time.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Damn.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, and so like I'm 18, and I'm like, okay, I gotta lock in now.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, but I'm seeing my my my little world fall apart at the same time that our whole country's world was falling apart.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: You had these bankers that literally set up a financial crisis that stripped out the homes of millions of people or put them in in danger of losing their homes, which is then what happened to us after my dad had like all of it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was both a micro and a macro story at the same time of like this promise that we were raised with no longer really exists.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um it was actually like to be honest, in 2010, it's such like a random thing, but in 2010, when these George Bush tax cuts for like the wealthiest people got extended, um also under the Obama administration, right?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't, you know, this was like a you know, before everyone gets into like the partisan, like yeah, you're anti-democrat, like it's just what happens.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's just right, you're a normal person looking at this, watching the system, and then it was like Citizens United pass, and the Supreme Court was like, yeah, money is speech, corporations have at it.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, we and we all were like this was a story.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: This was all a lie.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: A lie, a full lie.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: A lie.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And to your point, at the same time, like working people are still raised and we still hold those values of working your ass off to like make it work and to make things happen for yourself.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And also, like, even in that, yes, the deck is stacked, the system is rigged.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: This the story that we're told that this is all you have to do to make it is not quite true.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, miracles can still happen, and this is still America.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, your your specific, you know, personal story is is making me think of two things.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, miracles still happen.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's giving thoughts and prayers.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, uh, can you ban?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Can it not be a miracle?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Can it not be a miracle?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we had um Ben McKenzie, the actor who was on the OC and got Gotham on the other day, and he's like anti-crypto.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's his, he's like doing investigative investigative journalism right now.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we interviewed him uh a week ago or so, and he was talking about the financial crisis.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, and none of these guys went to prison.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: None of them.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot that they even could.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like the system, it's so wealth is so mythologized.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I forgot they could.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: When he said that, I was so mad.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah, right, they should have.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, first of all, I just want to say when you paint this picture of your dad growing up uh among the rubble, you know, I grew up on Long Island, Suffolk County, North Shore, Jewish, obviously, but not uh among Jews, among Italian and Irish.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, whatever.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Same, same in Westchester.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was like the only Puerto Rican girl, the whole town is like all Irish, Italian, and Jewish people.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Westchester has Jews.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up, I thought, I thought Jews were like half the US population.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is New York.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of my friends who grew up uh around Albany felt the same way.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Yeah, no, no, baby.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: I thought there were like three ethnicities of white people.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it was Irish, Italian, and Jews.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea of a non-ethnic white person, like a like a wasp, was like Yorktown was like this more working class, uh, upwardly mobile town.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so like the wasps were like elsewhere.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Being on Long Island and being in a segregated White suburb.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I had this sense that this was a system because we would go into the city and see plays or whatever.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I know it's not like white people are just here because.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just had this sense.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it took me so long, you know.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, then I came to the city and like sort of educated myself and learned.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: But just thinking about the way the city was criminalized, essentially living there as a kid.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was born in 87.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So growing up in the 90s and the story of AIDS and drugs and the rubble, as though the people growing up among it had caused it.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like you're up in this lie, and it takes so much lived experience learning, reflecting, more lived experience, learning, reflecting to come out from outside and see it.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, that was a big part of my experience too, because my parents, um, you know, they had started off in the Bronx, and then when I was like around four or five, you know, the dropout rates in the Bronx at that time were like 50%.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Drop out of school.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Dropping out of school.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: And 50%.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom was like, we want her to have a chance.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so my whole extended family chipped in and helped my parents with a down payment on a small house, like 30, 40 minutes north of the Bronx.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so, but my dad worked in the Bronx, my whole family was in the Bronx, and so a lot of my life was shuttling between Westchester and the Bronx, wow, and spending time with my cousins and my family.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And from a very young age, it that experience in me, seeing that my cousins didn't really have books in schools.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: And like talking to my cousins, literally five, six, seven years old, and seeing how different our experiences are, and knowing that, you know, I love my family, and knowing so deep down that they are not smarter than me, like we are all just the same.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I had different, I had a different experience than they did at that time.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I just knew it was because of literally the geographic area, like where my house was versus 30 minutes.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Where their house was in 30 minutes.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't fair.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I just like felt that and knew that as a kid.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's painful as a kid.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: It hurts.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you're feeling this system hurting people.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: When you say the dropout rate, this is the um phrase we have for it, but it so puts it on the kid.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: They dropped out.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then, but then two seconds later, there's no books in school.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: So what would they stay for?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's so, it's so violent.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a good point.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a good point that it was called a dropout rate as though it's a kid's choice.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how it was framed in the 90s, too, right?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's You better believe.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And to this day, New York City and even a lot of like liberal cities, Boston, et cetera, still have some of the most racially segregated school districts.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Park Slope is one of the most segregated school districts in the United States.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's like for what?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're in Brooklyn.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, random things.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: You got siblings.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're the eldest daughter.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: What you got?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have a younger brother.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's three years younger than me.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: You are giving big sister vibes.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: How about that?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um what are you?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Are you I'm a younger sister.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're a younger sister.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: My brother is four years older than me.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted a sister so bad.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: I would beg my mom.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, please gonna have I never, but I feel like I would have been a totally different person if I had a sister.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just when you were talking about your parents did everything right and you get a diagnosis and everything crumbles.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's not, honestly, that's not a civilization.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's capitalism, right?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Barbarism.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's barbarism.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is barbaric.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is reminding me of ICE and how these um how people in this country are doing everything right to be here, and yet they are being snatched, kidnapped, imprisoned, detained, children in warehouse concentration camps.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's related.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's related.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, can you speak to this?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And can you also speak to what you've seen from ICE in your district?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: The politics around immigration, like in the country, in terms of how people feel about it, it can kind of swing around a lot, as we see.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like every time Trump is running for re-election, he's able to saber rattle this into people being like, yeah, these people are dangerous, bad, coming in the wrong way, what have you.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so they deserve, you know, XYZ.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And yet also we are all proud at the same time of our heritage of immigration and the role because there's no, you know, there are there are very few like real archetypes of, in my opinion, truly what America is all about.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think about the civil rights and voting rights movement and how black Americans really created democracy in this country.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: How they literally made something from nothing.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: It is just beyond me.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think about how like native people have survived and preserved and and treasured uh their culture.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think about, and I think many of us think about immigrants, which if you aren't from one of those first two populations, you are certainly from largely the third.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so many of us like have our story of our parents, our grandparents, our great-great-grandparents, and so on and so forth.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um who like come and make something from nothing.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a big part of also the most inspiring elements of what America is all about.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can make something from nothing, you can lose everything, and you can make it again.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And like, I'm trying to remember, I saw this, I saw this TikTok the other day, and it's like, if you ran it up once, you can run it up again.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you ran it up once, you can run it up again.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about that.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And like, so it's it's that's America.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: It is proof of concept.
• 29:09
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• 29:45
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• 29:57
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• 31:06
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• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: I have always felt that America has always been a place of two stories.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: It has always been a place where of you know, where we've seen the worst of humanity and the best of humanity, and witnessing the triumphs of the best of us over the worst of what we've seen, I think is a very also a very big part of our of who we are.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so when it comes to eyes, I think it's where both of these elements meet because in an era of extreme income inequality, I don't think it's a coincidence that this xenophobia and anti-immigrant feeling is happening at the same time as record levels of income inequality.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: I also feel this way about Jim Crow and racism and all of this stuff, which is that when there is so much economic insecurity, I'm not, I don't want to say it's a driver, right?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be very clear about that.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: But what I also but I want to say that in the mix of deep racism and all of this, in the mix of that, when you feel like you could be next, when you feel like you are one accident away from losing your house and losing everything, you kind of there is a the lesser impulse of us is to subjugate or to feel like there is another class of people that is below you.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: That I'm not bad, right?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Our systems require us, capitalism and our, you know, what have you, our society requires us to internalize the failures of our systems, to your point, right?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the school that failed the kids, it's that you're the dropout.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's not that my, you know, it's not that Walmart pays less than a living wage.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's that I'm poor and I didn't work hard enough, so I didn't earn a better station in my life.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, clean out your yogurt containers to recycle them rather than tax fossil fuel companies.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is like when you have these systems, when you have corporations, when you have an economic elite, they have not there's a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned, right?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: You can't earn a billion dollars.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: You just can't earn that.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly correct.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can get market power, you can break rules, you can do all sorts of things, you can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they're worth, but you can't earn that, right?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have to create a myth that since you didn't earn that, you have to create a myth of earning it.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you're making minimum wage at a Walmart and you're making seven bucks an hour, and I mean, damn, with these gas prices, it takes you seven bucks to get to work.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so as a result, we've kind of internalized this moralized system, right?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: The people at the top are smarter, better, you know, uh more sophisticated, and therefore the people at the bottom are uneducated, lazy, etc.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you are there, and if you have internalized that code, you need somebody under you because you feel like you are kind of good.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is, most like you are right, right?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: But if you've internalized that, you need someone, you need someone to point to that's broken the rules, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's lazy, that's whatever.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because in a way, it's like someone else has got to be locked up so that you're not.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a mental coping mechanism because you actually are on the brink of losing your house.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to think that it's actually someone else.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Someone else deserves that, not me.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm the exception.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't be in this stock.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually, you know, this is a mistake.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: And America like lures people in with the exception to the rule story.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's not to say this is the cause, but in a history of racism, colonialism, what have you, it's served up to you on a platter.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's Jim Crow.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's that is, and that's a lot of you know, this immigration story.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you also need to fund a force that socially reinforces them.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're actually like not going after people who have quote unquote, you know, done harmful things.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: They're going after moms and kids and domestic workers.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if Stephen Miller really had that dog in him, he wouldn't be at a Home Depot parking lot preying on innocent people.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like, the problem is that, and he's he is a such an emblematic uh symbol of this system, right?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is a person that I feel is an embodiment of a lack of self-worth.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't agree more.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I when I see a lot of this administration, the false machismo, yes, the the need to like put gold on everything.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this need to present yourself as richer than you are, stronger than you are, smarter than you are.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why?
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's a distraction.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you say gold, and it's like it's just actually distracting from like actually looking at the person.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all these things are visible, the things you say.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I say you talk normal, I look at your eyes.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is the first time we're meeting, but I'm like, this is how I feel when I see video of you.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know who I'm looking at, I know who I'm listening to.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: And these people, it's it's visible that they act the thing about machismo too is they don't know who they are.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know who they're something so, you know, whatever you're embodying, womanly or manly, about knowing who you are.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a way of saying personhood.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: These people do not know who they are.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Machismo, it's like um, they just don't know where they've come from.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: And when you talk about unearned, most of these people who are ultra-wealthy come from the ultra-wealthy.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: So they don't even know the system, they don't even know the ladder that was climbed before.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't even know who they are.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why they're so angry because we do real work and we know who we are.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this weird, you know, with racism and and classism, there's this just weird co-opting of narratives of the oppressed by the oppressor because it's what is real.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, it's so it's so twisted.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when it comes to like ice in the district and the community, right?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, and like it it we see it.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're trying to instill fear in people, they're trying to rip people out of their homes.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I want to be very clear.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: We need to be centering the humanity of these people because they are Americans.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you're you're really come like, come on.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna tell me that someone came here at two years old and has gone through American schools.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna tell me that someone's come here with nothing but the shirt on their back, and they've been doing nothing but caring for other people's grandparents and building American homes and putting themselves through school.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna tell me that's not American?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's disgusting, honestly.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when Nancy Mace was going against trans girls in sports, but then it was opening the door to all children, having their genitals inspected in school, and seeing you say it's disgusting.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I so appreciated that because it's like it's one of the core feelings.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's just disgusting.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is just that's disgusting, the ice and and also speaking of machismo, you're you're putting Liam Ramos, Minnesota's Liam Ramos, five years old, as bait, and you think you're a man, you think you're tough, it's disgusting.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Another real problem with it is when we go back to that, that like I need someone else to be that five-year-old.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: Is that they then it then creates, we start making exceptions to our values, exceptions to the society that we want to live in.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, all of a sudden, we now have a paramilitary force.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have a court system, right?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: They don't need, they they don't think they need judicial warrants.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't get due process.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you start creating this black box system.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, black box warehouses.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Point a finger, whether it's like again, like we saw in Jim Crow, whether you just point a finger and a hundred years ago accuse a little black boy of something, you can point a finger and accuse someone of that today.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you think when once you build that machine that it's only gonna be reserved to that, that's right.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: This eats profit.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: These things, ICE, it's not just iCE, it's core civic, it's geo group.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: These those are corporations that run ICE detention centers.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: They are for profit.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: They are traded on Wall Street.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens is that those companies and this system is that it does not accept anything but growth.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even good enough to be profitable.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even good enough to be profitable.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be more profitable and more profitable and more profitable.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not enough to be a profitable business.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: You have to keep growing those profits.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so once they've rounded up every person in this country, who do you think is next?
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is the thing about, you know, I said I like mentioned genocidal frameworks before.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like as uh growing up as a Jew, as a minority where I grew up and going to Hebrew school and lear learning about the Holocaust, I was like, holy shit, like this is crazy.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't taught in school.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure the way it's taught in school now.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, the way that I've come to understand this system is that like there's a spectrum of true democracy, which, like you said, black people and black Americans in this country have been built.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Since they were not a, you know, captured and brought here.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, voting rights and civil rights.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't, we were apart-time before then.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's 70 years old or so, this system, 80 years old.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it's like there's a true democracy and fascism.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the dial, it's just about the dials, these genocidal frameworks.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they're just turning the dials up on trans people, they're turning the dial up on the genocidal framework on black people.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: And right now that the dial is being turned up on specifically Latino immigrants, but immigrants of color.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, the the that poem uh about the Holocaust about a Christian uh religious leader who was in a concentration camp was like, first they came for the Jews, then they came for the, then, and then they came for me.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think the story that's sold is to the white working class that they will never come for you.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: But they're seeing now with AI and data centers that they are coming for them.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they are coming for their homes, their water, their air, for growth, as you say.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this other thing of um just right in the middle of the night, um, Zuckerberg patented taking our data to create AI twins after we die, our AI twins, to create shadow versions of ourselves to keep posting so that they keep getting clicks.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to thank you personally for bringing him to court and trying to regulate this system that I have, I mean, I'm a faithful, optimistic person.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: I have faith we're gonna get back there one day because I think it is turning inside out.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: I do think mainstream audiences are understanding what's happening because every click, every scroll, every like puts 0.001 penny in one guy's pocket.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna take my data from DMs, even, not just public-facing data to to create my avatar to keep getting clicks.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: These people have so much money, it's not even about money.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, it's not even about money.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's cruelty, it's sadistic, it's it's psychotic.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: It is, and it's I find, I don't know, I just find the dynamic of it so wild because in my job, I do every once in a while have the opportunity to look at these folks in the eye.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when you really look at someone in the eye, you can really see so much, including what they want to hide, about who they who they like really are on the inside.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's just like you know, it's people with a lot of power that are some very often, I think, like just exacting their inner dramas and making it all of our problem.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like this guy has more money than anybody else in the world, and he is deprived.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming from a place of being deprived.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: So nothing can fill up these cups.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to tell these stories.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I think about I think about you and Zuckerberg growing up in Westchester.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's from Scarsdale, I think.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: How crazy is that?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, talking about these people who have all this money, it is it's I'm I'm again, I'm laughing because I'm nervous and um disgusted by what is now being called the Epstein class.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: These 3,000 billionaires who are now being called by mainstream America and mainstream global audiences the Epstein class.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you're 36, I'm 39.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: And in preparing for this conversation and thinking about it and talking to your team and just reflecting, thinking about us being young women in the early 2000s, which was a dangerous time.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you and I, you know, clearly whatever we had, you know, I an energy that I think we share and an ambition and looking out into the world.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: And um, as a young woman who developed early, and I kind of have had this body since I'm 10 years old, getting the attention from grown-ups.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: Dude.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: And mostly men, some women, getting attention that I was like, oh, the world is unsafe for me.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is unsafe.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is it's 2026.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking, you know, 2000, I'm 13 years old.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: 2001, I'm 14 years old.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe when I get to the city cat call, I'm like, do you know I'm 18?
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm this is I'm scared, you know, feeling so angry.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to have a fire in me because I felt scared.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a little doggy getting, you know, and it's like, rah, you know, I'd be like, fuck off.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is scary, right?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: But then fast forward 25 years later, you and I are adults now.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the world, and we're affirmed that it was actually worse than I never would have dared imagine because it is too disgusting and it is too chilling to my bones and terrifies me.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to connect those dots, you know, where we hold all this time that we've lived.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe?
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Can you even believe so crazy?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right, because it's like the depravity of this stuff, you know, is just too.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just like it was just too much to believe.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if and and truly, you tell someone this before all this stuff drops, you tell someone this, and you're like, okay, all right.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it is a it is a level of human depravity that is, I think, too too much to even consider being real until you see this.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: And looking back on it too, it's um how we grew up.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you're looking back at like limited to Dilias, Wet Seal, yeah.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it and like it was this culture that was created, and um it is so crazy, and I think about it too, growing up.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I was I um I got braces.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now kids get braces early, but I got braces late.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Also, my parents need to save up for it.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like 14 when I got braces.
• 50:59
  unknown: Wow, okay.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And but I I at that time I was also um I was also going to the city because I was working on uh I whatever, I I did science stuff.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: I did like science competitions.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: So cute, adorable.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe AOC.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: I had to take the train um to Mount Sinai and Subway or so I took, but I had to take the Metro North and I took the the subway.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: Coming out.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I look back because when you're a kid, you don't really you're like You gotta do your thing, you gotta get to the place and you're very like naive and or you know what you think things are normal when you're younger.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: I look back, and the amount of men that were talking to me and complimenting my body when I had a mouthful of braces is crazy to me.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a culture created by these guys, some of whom actually did own Limited 2.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like this was not a coincidence.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they do it to make what they're doing normal.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: They need the system to prop them up so that they're powerful at the top of this system that's normalizing pedophilia and rape.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what I'm also talking about in terms of the psychology of power.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because when we talk about whether it's the 1%, the Epstein class, what have you, when you have a desire for power, for power's sake, it is a desire for domination.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: We know this, you know, if you are a survivor of sexual abuse or assault as I am, like having been through that experience, you really feel actually how much it's about power.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: And this like need for power, it becomes like a sickness.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: And compulsion.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's it becomes a compulsion, not for pleasure.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then it just becomes more about what more taboo or things that you can break.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep, yep.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like just like the ice thing.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about profit, it's about growing the numbers.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Who can break the law?
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's about, yeah, those like ice, they don't need the judicial warrant.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: How visible can you make this and get away with it?
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can do the illegal things.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, they're not just, we know where they're not going after immigrants.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now they're all putting on, it's not a coincidence.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: They're all putting on meta glasses and they're putting tons of money into palantier contracts to create a national surveillance state so that if you go out and you want to protest, they want to scan your face and put it in a system.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is about a compulsion.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is about also like this is a system, and there's a psychology of the people pulling the levers of this system.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's like, okay, you know, doom, gloom, scary, this is bad.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's the dark part of the American story.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: But America is not complete without the triumph of our story.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's the dark side of things.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: But there is also us.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Minnesota this year.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Minnesota honestly like saved the world.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and again, by the way, from the the rise of Black Lives Matter, showing people what it means to actually break through this racial construct that is screwing us all over.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: Keith Porter, Renee Good, Alex Pretty executed by ICE.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: These people sacrificed their lives, you know, consciously or not, for America to see and to not just be steamrolled by this system.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so glad that you said that because in this moment, people are often like, what's being done?
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm listening.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: Leadership of the Democratic Party is a whole, you know, we can get there.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: But but what is important is that what I've always wanted everyone, and what I think all of us need to know, is that power is not there.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: Power's actually never been there.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: Power has never been in the leadership of a political party.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I I include like myself in a suit in that, right?
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's never been about that.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's always been about you and us and people and mobilizing.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: And like it is, it is, because elections, politics, fundamentally reactive force.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's fundamentally reactive.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to electoral politics for proactivity, there's you're gonna, okay, sure.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be those of us who represent, you know, movements and give voice to that and work towards that.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: But because the actual function of an electoral system, people are always in anticipation of an election, right?
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: They make decisions based on the vibe.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: And who is in control of the vibe?
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: We are the people.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just vibe, it's real power.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's like people deciding they've had enough, they're gonna unionize their workplace, they're gonna go on strike, they're gonna walk out of school, they're gonna, they're they're gonna be talking about things, they're going to be, and they're gonna be making decisions.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, those folks, they often sometimes they will chase, oftentimes they'll chase what they think people are gonna do.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it's slow.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we Right.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: The bureaucracy is slow.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: So but Minnesota, there you got moms rolling up on site the next day.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing will ever be faster.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: Than mass mobile, then the power of the people.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing will ever be faster.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the people don't even know the power they have, and the system is is intends to make people not know the power they have.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because the more we know it and the sooner we just get together, we are the majority.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then also, you just two days ago brought to uh brought to the floor in Congress this situation with the EPA and lobbying.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me about it?
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: Corporations are absolutely poisoning the American people, and they are absolutely buying off Congress and the presidential administration to get away with it.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something that force is evergreen.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: And people often like put this also all on presidents, sure, but it's Congress.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, most of it I think happens in because that's more anonymous than the White House.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so Monsanto has been, I mean, we there's no shortage of the things that Monsanto does that that whether it's crop monocultures, whether it's the way that they take over our systems of big ag and glyphosate or Roundup is one of the big one of the biggest scandals of our time.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: You also have PFAS, too, which was also other companies, right?
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you have DuPont, 3M, Monsanto.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: Monsanto was purchased by Bayer.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so here's what's going on is that Roundup has been connected to a lot of cancer in this country, specifically non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: And farmers and lots of people that have been exposed to Roundup, some of whom, many of whom who have developed this, have been suing Monsanto.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: And Monsanto has been settling and settling and settling with people across the country trying to keep this quiet, but also being held liable for this.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is one of the biggest multinational corporations in the world, but they've at this point they had paid out, I think, over a billion dollars in damages and counting.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: So now Monsanto says, we gotta stop this.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we also gotta increase Roundup.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: We still want to we want to sell more of it, and we have to stop people from suing us.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um last year, uh, the CEO of Bayer, the vice president of Bayer, which owns Monsanto, and a lobbyist for Bayer, had a meeting with Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the EPA.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: From my county on Long Island, I guess.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_00: Long Islander.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: Also, like weaponized his Jewish identity against the Palestinian people and the history of the Holocaust in a way that was deeply upsetting.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um I know him.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know him well.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so he um so he met with them and we we worked with in with organizers, everyday people.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I'm saying, like how we can actually make a difference.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: So there were these everyday organizers and people that had submitted FOIA requests.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because anybody can do that.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: What is that?
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Freedom of Information Act request to ask for emails um in the EPA about this.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: And they found them.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: And they found the meeting notes from the senior advisor to Lee Zeldon, who had met with Bayer to have a pre-meeting before Lee Zeldan met with them and said, this is what we're gonna talk about.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: And one of them was that they they were talking about how they want to tackle, take on the Supreme Court.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: They want to bring uh their case to the Supreme Court so Americans can't sue them anymore, legal immunity for Bayer and Monsanto at the Supreme Court.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but their case rested on the EPA not warning or saying that basically the EPA never said this was carcinogenic, so no one should ever be able to sue us for this, which is even if that were true, still crazy.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like not what not should be the bar, right?
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is all just big money and power and one hand washing the other.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and but we got these emails.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: So Lee Zelding comes, and what was important is that he comes before um the committee.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: And whenever someone's coming before the committee, you have to think, what am I gonna ask this guy?
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's no shortage of things to press him on.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: But what I had seen was that the uproar around glyphosate was bipartisan.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: Maha, this is a big issue.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: And like Maha has organized around this.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I talk about like these core truths, it's like this stuff is real.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like corporations are, and people know about this.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they know that that these companies are poisoning us, whether it's PFAS or glyphosate or whatever it is, and they know that they're paying off the government or or exerting power to not be accountable to it and to not let us know.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, what happened with you and Zeldon in Congress?
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: So he comes before, and I asked him, Have you ever met with the bear CEO?
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, Absolutely not.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_01: Never.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, Oh, and I reach for a paper.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: I probably did it too soon.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then he goes, and he sees me reach for the paper, and he goes, Oh, it was very brief.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was a meeting, but it was very brief.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because he would have perjured himself.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_01: So he sees me reach for the paper because he didn't know what I had.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, um, did anyone who works for you have conversations with them too?
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because that email said that they had already met with Bayer and prepped all the content already.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: And Bayer was thanking him for getting rid of the glyphosate warnings, likely, so that they could set up the Supreme Court case, which was happening this week.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_01: To give America, we got him red-handed, right?
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: And people then say, okay, fine, like you see these things in these hearings.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: What happened, like, what okay, great, we caught him.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, so what?
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you why this had a material effect.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because that week, two things were happening.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: You have the glyphosate case that is making its way before the Supreme Court, hearing the oral arguments around it.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when you start to publicly expose this, like public exposure matters.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: We can't be cynical about this.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: People are like, oh, okay, well, I'm aware of it now.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_01: Why does it matter?
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: It really has a huge effect because now that truth is known going into that case.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: It makes it harder for them to make the legal case and increases the odds.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: Again, we don't know what the Supreme Court's gonna do, but we'll see what happens with this.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: But two, there was a vote, the farm bill was happening this week.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: And in the farm bill, the farm bill also had legal immunity for Bear Monsanto glyphosate.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: It like Congress was going to pass it.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_01: Congress was going to make it official so that almost you didn't even need the Supreme Court.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: Congress was going to create legal immunity for Bayer Monsanto that week.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: So he was coming in before that vote.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that if people knew what was going on and that this was speaking across the board, you have you have folks who maybe voted for Donald Trump.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: But didn't vote for that.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I knew that if you can get that out, and also knowing that there are people as well in a Republican coalition that don't want this either, we can maybe contribute to a moment where we can get this thing out.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so, but we have to prove that it we have to prove and we have to show that it's coming from the top, there's collusion, and this is absolutely happening on purpose.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we did with Lee Zeldon.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then what happened the next two days?
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: You get a coalition of progressive Democrats, people like Kelly Pingry and Anna Paulina Luna, who is a very MAGA person.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they force a vote on an amendment to strip legal immunity for glyphosate and Roundup and force a vote on the House floor on it.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we won.
• 1:07:09
  unknown: Wow.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that happened this week.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so this, you know, we'll see what happens with the Supreme Court.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_01: But Congress was teed up to bona fide, 100% establish legal immunity for Monsanto this week.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: And insane.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: Insane.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is sure, I'm in a position of power.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is, I am one of very few people that could do that.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_01: But also, I also think that this is reflective of what we all can do, right?
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: Which is that I wanted to do this.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: I felt that it would have an impact.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_01: There isn't a bona fide, like, if I do this, then absolutely the next thing will happen.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: But you know that you are contributing to an environment where where we can make the right outcome more likely.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like run up the probability, do the thing in hopes that someone else will see it.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: It'll give courage for someone else to stand up.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: And things materialize.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: And like this was this huge victory that happened this week.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: Bipartisan victory.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_01: Bipartisan, also anti-establishment.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you're not going to hear about it.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because mainstream news doesn't want to tell that story.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because what they want is just partisanship no matter what.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like they want you to think that they want to send a gridlock.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: They want you to believe that if someone voted for Trump, they're they are your 100% bona fide enemy on every single issue.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not the guy at the top.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the your name is the fact of the matter is, yeah.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: And like the fact of the matter is, is people are way more complicated.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot, like there's a lot of wrong.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: And also you can still kind of win them over, right?
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uncertainty is a necessary condition for hope.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you think everything is cooked, there's no hope.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_00: Also, what I'm hearing in your strategy is to sound the alarm to the people.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like I alone can do it if you remember that.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and the other thing I'm hearing is that shame still exists, which I see.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when the people rise up, organized, and say, no, this is gross.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_00: You want to give us all cancer.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't, I honestly, I don't even like, I don't even have it in me to wish ill ill will on Maha, MAGA.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not sure.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sad for these people who voted.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, you want them to have healthcare.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_01: All these people, like dropping in my DMs or comments, like who are giving me like all this hate speech and want me to like, you know, wish all the worst things in the world for me.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I wish all the best things in the world for them.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is a cruel system that we're living in.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_01: If our basic needs are met, we are not going to be on each other's sides.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_01: I want them to have healthcare, man.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I want our public schools to be world class.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I want, you know, I don't want people's water to be poisoned.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care if you're a red state or voted for Trump.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's actually some of these places, like especially in the wake of this voting rights um demolishment that we're seeing.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of these red states, they're not red, they're oppressed.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep, yep.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've driven across the country many times and I'll drive through really rural areas and I see the level of neglect.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yeah, I'd be pissed off at paying taxes too.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_01: I live in New York City.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, we have a high tax rate or a higher tax rate, but you know, when it snows out, I get to look out my window and I get to see well-paid sanitation workers clearing that stuff out in a minute.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I get to see public school workers or public school teachers like really doing amazing stuff for our kids.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I get to walk out of my house and take the subway, which is publicly funded.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, yeah, this is worth it.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Being in a community and being together and doing this stuff for all of us is worth it.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to live in a very individualized and isolated existence.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I see places that are neglected, and I'm like, yeah, I totally get the anger.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I really could talk to you for a long time.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you ever want to come back, I'd just, man, I could, I could, I could talk to you for a long time.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so appreciative of you, Congresswoman.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the things I just want to say are, you know, you are after Donald Trump got elected this last time.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I remember your Instagram stories about how you were voted for by people who voted for Trump.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, wherever you go in your political career next, you make sense to people.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can speak in a way that people understand.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so grateful for it.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I also hope that you get the rest that you need.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Good sleep.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you fight so hard, your work reverberates, and um, I'm just so privileged to talk to you today.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I so appreciate it.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Lana.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, AOC Congresswoman, and your team for making this happen.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you're absolutely brilliant, and I'm so grateful to have interviewed you, but even more grateful for you to be doing the work you're doing in Congress.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Holy moly.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to thank the exclusively human team who made this episode and makes this whole show happen.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, shout out specifically to my creative producers, Annika Carlson, David Rookland, and Glenis Mahar for really setting this up, thinking about it and prepping.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks also to Madeline Kim and Kelsey Kylie.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you to Tova Libowitz, our editor, Ramo Ventura, who makes the beautiful graphics and the opening musical sting.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you to the good people who made this episode look and sound so good.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's Nicole Maupin, Lexa Krebs, and Kevin Deming.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank Don Hur, uh, one of my favorite brand bands, uh, which is my brother Elliot Glazer, Jimmy Hines, and Derek Miro for this musical outro.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, if you like this show, like and subscribe because it actually makes a difference to the community that we are building here at It's Open with Alana Glazer.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm on tour.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on tour right now.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can come see me out in the world.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can get tickets at alanaglazer.com.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much and have a good day.