Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #211 Money in Politics, Reparations, & How the Goverment Works with Jamaal Bowman

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EYL #211 Money in Politics, Reparations, & How the Goverment Works with Jamaal Bowman · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
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  Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: border and families will.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Be protected sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: So like, let's take Israel, they can have a main
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: focus for one issue. Yes, the state of Israel protected,
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: make sure it's thriving, whatever, But black people, it's so
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  Speaker 3: many different issues. So It's like you got reparations, you
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  Speaker 3: got criminal justice reform, you got education, and then so
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  Speaker 3: do you think that that makes it harder? It would
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  Speaker 3: it be easier to start a pack for one issue,
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  Speaker 3: like a reparations pack just or like you know what
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  Speaker 3: I'm saying, you're focused trying to cover thirty five different things.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, right, and reparations could be that thing because that's
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  Speaker 4: the thing that kind of touches everything.
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  Speaker 5: My graduates from my school being false bad drop bag drop,
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  Speaker 5: Mike drop bad drop drop.
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  Speaker 3: All right, guys, welcome back. Yeah, I l were back home.
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  Speaker 3: I've been traveling around the world.
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  Speaker 2: It's good to be home.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah for sure.
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  Speaker 3: Shot out to everybody that was in London. Yeah that
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  Speaker 3: was amazing. Did you see that on social media?
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  Speaker 6: I did not not yet. Okay, yeah, we got to bring.
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  Speaker 3: We did a show at the Royal Alcohol youve heard
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  Speaker 3: of it, Yes, So we did a show there and
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  Speaker 3: sold out and it was crazy. Four thousand people in London.
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  Speaker 2: Man came.
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  Speaker 3: It was an experience experience, to say the least. Financial literacy.
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  Speaker 3: People was hungry for it all over the world, especially
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  Speaker 3: our community, our communities all over the world. So you know,
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  Speaker 3: same stories, no matter where you go, same issues. But
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  Speaker 3: long story short with BA in New York and we
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  Speaker 3: are here with a very special guest. This is the
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  Speaker 3: first time that we've actually spoken about politics on a
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  Speaker 3: local level. We've interviewed Shine before, and we've interviewed Stacey Aras. Yes, Shine,
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  Speaker 3: I think he's running for Prime Minister of believe if
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  Speaker 3: I'm not.
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  Speaker 2: At some point, I think he will.
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  Speaker 3: I think he announced it. Okay, he was the former
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  Speaker 3: opposition leader.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, Georgia. Even the herschel Walker thing and or not,
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  Speaker 2: that's close.
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  Speaker 3: Hersha Walker is looking crazy.
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  Speaker 6: We'll talk about that. We'll get there.
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  Speaker 2: That's another story. I'll never use him again. In technobol.
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  Speaker 4: Walk tech.
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  Speaker 2: He was all techo.
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  Speaker 4: He was he was.
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  Speaker 3: He's one of the greatest of all time, greatest what
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  Speaker 3: football players college?
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  Speaker 6: I don't know about that.
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  Speaker 3: Minnesota he was tougher.
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  Speaker 4: He's one of the biggest names because he was in
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  Speaker 4: the USFL, Trump's league ironically, and then got the NFL.
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  Speaker 4: Was traded. It was a big trade, biggest trade, the
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  Speaker 4: biggest trade like ever. But Dallas picked up a bunch.
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  Speaker 2: Of picks, Michael.
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  Speaker 4: Like their whole Super Bowl team. They traded herschel Walker
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  Speaker 4: for pretty much the super Bowl team.
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  Speaker 2: The dynasty was built off there or her se Wow,
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  Speaker 2: shout out to Georgia. Yeah, I mean he's the king there, right,
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  Speaker 2: they want they want.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I was just there. I was. I've
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  Speaker 4: been doing some traveling also, trying to get out the vote,
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  Speaker 4: different states, different cities. I was in Georgia, Columbus, Georgia
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  Speaker 4: and Atlanta, and I watched I was there to watch
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  Speaker 4: the Walknock Walk of debate and yeah, so on the ground,
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  Speaker 4: so on the ground, people are just like it's going
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  Speaker 4: to be close. It's going to be a runoff because
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  Speaker 4: you know, you gotta get to fifty percent. Somebody has
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  Speaker 4: to crack fifty percent to avoid a runoff, and I
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  Speaker 4: don't think either one will, So there's going to be
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  Speaker 4: a runoff. There's a third candidate who's a libertarian who's
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  Speaker 4: taken about four percent of the vote, which is hurting
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  Speaker 4: Warnock right now. But the fact that it's even competitive,
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  Speaker 4: you know, for people like us from different parts of town.
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  Speaker 6: It's crazy.
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  Speaker 4: But Georgia also has majority Taylor Green, who's literally a
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  Speaker 4: white supremacist in Congress.
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  Speaker 3: So but today you have Congressman Jamal So he's actually
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  Speaker 3: our congressman where we live. He's the congressman of our district,
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  Speaker 3: which includes the North Bronx to Middle west Chester.
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  Speaker 2: New Michelle. Yanga's White Plains for how far Vernon.
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  Speaker 4: Pretty much stops at White Plains. So what's you know?
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  Speaker 4: So Portchester the sound show, so Rye, Rye City, and
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  Speaker 4: then on the other side of Greenberg, river Towns, and
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  Speaker 4: then in between so Scarsdale, Bronxville, Yonkers, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Uh,
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  Speaker 4: east Chester, you know all those small little villages and
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  Speaker 4: towns also so and in the North Bronx specifically it's
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  Speaker 4: eden Wald and Wakefield. In the North it used to
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  Speaker 4: be co Op City, used to also be Riverdale. But
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  Speaker 4: with redistrict game, they just drew new lines. So uh,
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  Speaker 4: come January first, I'll be officially the rap for these
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  Speaker 4: areas in New York six.
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  Speaker 3: What district is that?
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  Speaker 4: New York sixteen sixteen six yep, all.
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  Speaker 3: Right, So this is a conversation that's extremely important because
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  Speaker 3: a lot of us are not educated on politics correctly.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we know about the president, and we might
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  Speaker 3: know about the governor. We might be educated on senators,
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  Speaker 3: we're not really educated on congressman and from my understanding,
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  Speaker 3: the Congress has a lot of power, right it's the
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  Speaker 3: House of Representatives and the Senate, and it's like fifty
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  Speaker 3: to fifty in the power structure right actually.
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  Speaker 4: So currently in the Senate it's a fifty to fifty split,
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  Speaker 4: with the Vice President being the deciding fifty first vote
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  Speaker 4: in case of a tied vote, depending on what the
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  Speaker 4: legislation is. And in the House we have like this,
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  Speaker 4: four hundred and thirty five in the House, and I
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  Speaker 4: think our margin right now is like six votes in
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  Speaker 4: the House. When I say our, I mean Democrats. Right now,
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  Speaker 4: Democrats have control of both. But you know when people
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  Speaker 4: hear that, you know, one of the first things they
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  Speaker 4: say is why aren't we getting more done? And one
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  Speaker 4: of the reasons why we're not just because the Senate
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  Speaker 4: is so tight and right now, it's something called a filibuster,
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  Speaker 4: which we can get into a little bit later, which
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  Speaker 4: means you need a super majority in the Senate for
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  Speaker 4: a piece of legislation. So passed the Senate so it
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  Speaker 4: could pass the House by one vote, all good, it'll
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  Speaker 4: go to the Senate. But then when it gets to
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  Speaker 4: the Senate, if we only the supermjority, a sixty to
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  Speaker 4: forty majority, then the law doesn't move forward because of
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  Speaker 4: the filibuster, which we could talk about.
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  Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's a lot. You spoke about the district
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  Speaker 2: that you're in, Northern Bronx either. Yes, the first time
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  Speaker 2: I met you was not far from there. You used
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  Speaker 2: to be Principal Bowman, Yes, sir, and I was teaching
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  Speaker 2: in the Bronx and our school they used they had
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  Speaker 2: a PD professional development Day and we were chosen to
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  Speaker 2: go to your school, and I was inspired by what
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  Speaker 2: was happening. It was the first time I walked in
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  Speaker 2: the building and I still remember it. I saw Tupac
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  Speaker 2: on the wall, I saw Rest on the wall, I
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  Speaker 2: saw Malcolm X on the wall, and I was like,
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  Speaker 2: this is what school should be like, Like we should
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  Speaker 2: see images of people that look like us and people
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  Speaker 2: we look up to. So how did we transition from
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  Speaker 2: education in that sense to politics?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, when you work in schools,
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  Speaker 4: you you know all of the issues in the community
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  Speaker 4: sort of land at your doorstep, right, whatever kids are
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  Speaker 4: going through, whatever families are going through. So if kids
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  Speaker 4: are hungry, if families are struggling with housing, if there's
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  Speaker 4: a lack of jobs, if there's criminal justice entanglements, if
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  Speaker 4: there are mental health issues, all of it. You see
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  Speaker 4: it in your school every day. And I got to
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  Speaker 4: the point where one I began to understand how our
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  Speaker 4: tax dollars funds public education, right, So I got to
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  Speaker 4: learn about that, and then I got to also learn
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  Speaker 4: when I would visit other schools and other communities, how
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  Speaker 4: in wealthier communities take Scarsdale, for example, their schools receive
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  Speaker 4: additional tax dollars because the structures such where local property
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  Speaker 4: taxes fund schools more than federal tax dollars. So thinking
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  Speaker 4: about school funding, thinking about the lack of resources in
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  Speaker 4: certain schools in certain school districts, got me paying more
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  Speaker 4: attention to politics. And then as I paid more attention,
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  Speaker 4: I realized that politicians weren't connecting the issues that my
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  Speaker 4: kids and families were going through, to the policies that
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  Speaker 4: they were advocating for, and to the resources that they
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  Speaker 4: weren't fighting for to.
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  Speaker 6: Bring into the community.
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  Speaker 4: So just started looking and paying more attention. And you know,
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  Speaker 4: I opened the school. So I don't know if you
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  Speaker 4: knew that, but I'm the founding principal school. So I
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  Speaker 4: opened it in two thousand and nine, so I'm like
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  Speaker 4: an education entrepreneur in that way. I think the same
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  Speaker 4: year of the year after that, Occupy Wall Street happened,
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: so that was like a big deal obviously, with like
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  Speaker 4: you know, people intents down by Wall Street talking about
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  Speaker 4: ninety nine percent versus one percent, and then that just
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  Speaker 4: opened my mind to Okay, what's happening with this wealth
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  Speaker 4: and equality? So I began to get educated on that.
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  Speaker 4: And then shortly thereafter I believe it was Trayvon Martin
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  Speaker 4: was killed, like a few years later, black Lives Matter
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  Speaker 4: movement exploded, and obviously, you know, being a black male
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  Speaker 4: Trayvon Martin is not an anomaly unfortunately. You know, from
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  Speaker 4: from Rodney King to uh to at I'm Gonna do, Diallo,
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  Speaker 4: Abne Louima, Ramalley Graham, Sean bell On.
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  Speaker 6: And on right.
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  Speaker 4: So you know, my school was a school social justice,
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  Speaker 4: so that just so what was happening in the real world.
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  Speaker 4: We tried to make part of our curriculum in school
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  Speaker 4: so kids were learning about it. At the same time,
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  Speaker 4: Khalif Browner happened around this time as well, that became
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  Speaker 4: part right, So I just the social issues, the education funding,
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  Speaker 4: what my kids was going through a spike, and just
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  Speaker 4: kids committing self harm in my school and other schools
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  Speaker 4: just led to me thinking about it. And then Bernie
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  Speaker 4: in twenty sixteen also began to talk a lot about
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  Speaker 4: the wealth and the qualley and the economic injustice. And
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  Speaker 4: then when the Squad won in twenty eighteen, they created
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  Speaker 4: a lane in terms of what they were talking about
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  Speaker 4: that fit with what I wanted.
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  Speaker 2: About to tell everybody who the squad is.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. So in twenty eighteen, four women of color won
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  Speaker 4: congressional seats, and they were all insurgents, they were all
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  Speaker 4: long shots to win. One in the Bronx in particular,
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  Speaker 4: congresswomen on Kazio Cortaz beat a long time incumbent in
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  Speaker 4: Joe Crowley, and then the other three sisters, I think
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  Speaker 4: a couple of seats were open, and one Ayana Presley,
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  Speaker 4: also won against a long time incumbent. So those wins
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  Speaker 4: were like they took the country by storing with those wins.
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  Speaker 4: But it wasn't just those wins that got me interested.
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  Speaker 4: It was what they were talking about. Like they were
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  Speaker 4: talking about racial justice, talking about economics, and they were
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  Speaker 4: talking about the issues that we would talk about in
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  Speaker 4: the barbershops. We would talk about, you know, on the block,
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  Speaker 4: we would talk about in our schools, and that led
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  Speaker 4: me to be like, you know, maybe that's something I
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  Speaker 4: could do. And then two years later I ran and
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  Speaker 4: also won a pretty big race.
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  Speaker 3: All right, so let's get into this conversation. What exactly
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  Speaker 3: does a congressman do? Is a congress person or congressman,
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  Speaker 3: because if it's a woman on it, they call congress
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  Speaker 3: women congresswoman.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean you could say congressmen. You can say
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  Speaker 4: congress women, you can say congress person. It depends.
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  Speaker 6: All three. All three work.
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  Speaker 4: So we work on federal policy. I mean, that's pretty
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  Speaker 4: much what we do. We make federal laws. We also
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  Speaker 4: are advocates for what is needed in our districts. We
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  Speaker 4: all in New York State, we represent about seven hundred
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  Speaker 4: and fifty thousand people each of us. So what I
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  Speaker 4: hear in my district from the people I represent is
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  Speaker 4: what I advocate for and write policy for. In Congress.
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  Speaker 4: We also can help move money around in terms of
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  Speaker 4: the federal budget, so ensuring that money goes into the
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  Speaker 4: areas that are needed based on what I hear in
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  Speaker 4: the district. So you know, in this district, for example,
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  Speaker 4: a big issue is affordable housing right not just in Greenberg,
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  Speaker 4: but in all parts of the district. So I meet
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  Speaker 4: with constituents, I hear this an issue, I learned about
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  Speaker 4: what's happened locally on the issue, and then I work
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  Speaker 4: with my legislative team to figure out a policy that
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  Speaker 4: we can write that will deal with that issue, not
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  Speaker 4: just in our district, but nationally also the federal government.
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  Speaker 4: We fund not just the federal government, but we fund
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  Speaker 4: federal jobs across the country, and we fund international other
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  Speaker 4: countries as well. So whether it's the Caribbean continent of Africa,
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  Speaker 4: the Middle East, we provide funding, whether it's military aid
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: or other aid to other countries. So in managing that budget,
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  Speaker 4: you know, I get an opportunity to look at where
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  Speaker 4: the money goes and then make a decision on like
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  Speaker 4: along with my team, based on what we've heard on
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  Speaker 4: how to move money from one place to another. One
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  Speaker 4: brief example is I noticed the first year I was
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  Speaker 4: in Congress, uh W, we give a lot of money
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  Speaker 4: to the military. Pretty much fifty one percent of our
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: congressional spending goes to the military. We give a lot
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  Speaker 4: of money to like the Bureau of Prisons and cops programs,
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  Speaker 4: and we give very little money to like minority owned
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  Speaker 4: businesses and investing there. So just working with my team
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  Speaker 4: to get money moved from you know, military, borough, prisons
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  Speaker 4: and other things that are detrimental to our communities and
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  Speaker 4: move it into areas where we want to see a
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  Speaker 4: large So Ways it Means is one committee, so there
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: are that's the most powerful committee. It's considered one of two.
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  Speaker 4: So Appropriations is one, and Ways and Means is probably two.
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  Speaker 4: Energy and Commerce is another one that's pretty powerful. But
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: they're all pretty they're all pretty powerful, and members of
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  Speaker 4: Congress we also have a bully pulpit, so if I
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: tweet something, if I write a statement about something, it's
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: going to get a lot of attention. We wrote a
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: letter to Biden earlier this year with a couple other
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: members of Congress pushing him to vacate the marijuana convictions
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: of people who are non violent offenders who were convicted,
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: who were in prison. We wanted him to release them
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: and vacate the convictions. He didn't do it then, but
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: just recently he actually vacated the convictions of sixty five
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: hundred formally incostrated people who had marijuana convictions still on
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: their record. That was stopping them from voting in certain states,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: stopping them from getting housing, stopping them from certain employment.
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  Speaker 4: So stuff like that. We just we do whatever we
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: want in alignment with the knees of our district, and
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  Speaker 4: we could go as far as we want to go.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So you brought up the district, and I know most
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: people are puzzled, like how many districts does New York have?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And how is it zoned?
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: Right?
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  Speaker 2: Because when I saw you on TV, I'm like, I
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: know him, but you were like dabs, very New York.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I'm like, how did he get up here? And so
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: before we started, he said that that's the new sixteen.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: So how does that change? And talk about the importance
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: of how that affects the way we devote.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So the old sixteen. So I've only been in Congress
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: two years when I ran, the Old sixteen included all
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: of the North Bronx, so from Corp City to Riverdale
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: and it came up as far as I would say,
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: Rye and it included Scarsdale, Hastings on the Hudson is
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: the only river town, Yonkers Bond, very Newershell. That was
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: the Old sixteen. But every ten years there's a census,
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: and uh, based on the census data, you can either
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: gain congressional seats or lose congressional seats. So when people
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: every ten years, when you're being pushed to fill out
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: the census, oftentimes we don't tell people why it's important, right,
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: But it's really important because if you get a large
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: number of people filling out census, you get more and
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: you get more congressional seats, you get more representation in
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: Congress fighting for the things I'm talking about, not less
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: so because we lost the seat, now you have less
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: representation in Congress. And then when you lose a seat,
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: the line shift a bit where you now have to
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: represent more people. So now I'm representing more people.
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: Lines have shifted a bit. And that's why.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: Places like Dobbs, Ferry, Greenberg, Portchester now white Planes. Now
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: they're going to vote for New York sixteen, which is
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: going to include me on Tuesday, and yeah, there's like
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: twenty I'm going to get the number one twenty, let's
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: say twenty four to twenty five. I could be wrong.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: Congressional districts in New York State and every state has
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: a different number.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Ernie leisure is supported by First Republic Bank. You've worked
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: hard and now it's paying off. That's why it's time
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: to start working with the financial partner who will always
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: have your back. With First Republic Bank, you get a
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• 18:51
  Speaker 3: So all right, let's talk about these committees. So you
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: have four hundred How many congress.
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: People are there? Four hundred and thirty five.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: So that's four hundred and thirty five congress people and
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: each state has a different amount. States like California and
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: New York have a lot, States like Wyoming have little. Yeah,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: because of population, the population, but they're all thrown into
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: a pot for votes, right, yes, when So there's two
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: senators each every state has two senators, yes, regardless of population,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: but each state has a different amount of Congress. But
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: all of the congressmen are thrown into the bucket and
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: they all vote right. So in order for a bill
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: to pass, you have to have the House of Representatives,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: which is Congress, and you have to have the Senate
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: on board for a bill to become law. For a
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: bill to become law many and then the President has
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: to sign it.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: Correct Like many bills past the House and don't move
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: in the Senate at all because the Senate just hasn't
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: functioned for a very long time. You mentioned committees, So
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: there are several committees. Again I'm forgetting the number, but
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: I sit on Education and Labor. I'm actually the vice
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: chair of Education and Labor, and I'm also on the Science,
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Space and Tech Committee. And each committee has like jurisdiction
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: over different aspects of the country. So Science Space and
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: Tech we have jurisdiction over like artificial intelligence and NASA
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: for example, which means, you know, if I want to
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: go to NASA to inspect what's going on in NASA
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: just to make sure things are coposthetic, I can go
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: as a member of the committee to just do an inspection,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: see what's going on. Also, that means that generally could
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: mean most of my legislation will be rooted in science,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: space and technology, or education and labor. But that's not
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: the case for me because I'm very interested in economics,
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: which is why I love your show. And that's one
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: of the reasons why we're trying to get on the
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: Ways and Means Committee for the next cycle.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Means Committee, Charlie Rangel would used to be the head
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: of the West Committee, right, Charlie. So they said that's
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: the most powerful committee because that they control a budget
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: for What do they control the budget for?
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: Well, they control the tax code. The tax code so
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: they can help ensure that our tax code is progressive
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: and equitable or or not so much. So they put
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: the policies in place that generates the revenue that comes
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: into Congress. That revenue then goes to appropriations to be
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: appropriated accordingly. So that's why those two committees work hand
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: in hand. Those two committees are so powerful.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: So they bring the money in, then the Appropriation committee
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: dictates where the money goes.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: Yes, I wouldn't say it dictates so appropriations has I
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: think they have twelve subcommittees, and each subcommittee has a
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: certain area foreign policy, education, healthcare, different areas. Each of
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: those subcommittees, along with the members of those subcommittees, decide
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: how money is going to be allocated for the annual budget. Now,
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: if you're not on those committees, they reach out to
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: us to get feedback from us so that we can
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: have input in terms of where the money goes. There's
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: also something called community project funding, so each member. Obama
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: stopped this, but Biden brought it back. Each member is
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: allowed to designate last time, it was fifteen times before
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: that was ten, a certain amount of community projects that
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: you want to provide funding to. For example, there's a
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: YMCA and Yonkers.
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: We worked with the CEO of.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: Yonkers YMCA to bring in half a million dollars so
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: that they could fund their pool and get it upgraded.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: We did the same thing with the newer Shell Boys
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: and Girls Love to help them provide additional after school programming.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Worked with the Mount Vernon Mental Health Public Health Center
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: so that they can provide mental health services for seniors,
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: so things like that. We so far we've helped fund
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: twenty We're going to help fund twenty five programs over
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: my first two years and hope to do more next year.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: So there's the general budget where we're like, okay, you're
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: not funding education enough. There's only like one hundred million
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: in there. We want to up that to four hundred million.
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: Boom.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: They don't have to do it, but we make the suggestion.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: And then the last thing I'll add to that is
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: before we do our budget, the president comes out with
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: his budget and his priorities, and so ideally we would
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: work in alignment with the president presidents by our priorities,
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: if the presidents are part of our party and aligned
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: with what the people are saying. But that's always icy
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: because again, and I want to make this point again,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: there are lobbies that digt hat how we spend our
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: money in Congress, and they are very powerful lobbies like
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: the military industrial complex for turner order, police, fossil fuel companies,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: pharmaceutical companies.
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: They literally contact.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: Us every day to make sure we not only support
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: the policies they want, but when we fund the budget,
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: we fund it in alignment with what they want.
• 24:25
  Speaker 6: So that's a big part of that as well.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: It's not just you know me, because I don't take
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: corporate pac money and I don't meet with lobbyists. I
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: don't have a problem hanging up a phone and not
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: takeing a call from a corporation because my focus is
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: on what are the people in the community telling me,
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: and I try to work with that.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you said you're the vice chair of you said education, science,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: and them vice chair of editing Labor, Labor. Yeah, and
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: so one of the things.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, chair of the Energy Subcommittee on Science, Space
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: and Tech.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean rooted in education still. And one of
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: the things I know you were very very advied about was,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: you know, standardized testing. And so I wonder, I mean,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: because we talked about this very early on in any
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: leisure with like the business of standardized tests, and that
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: you are a strong opponent against it. I wonder at this
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: point how much support is that GUD And is that
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: still something that you see as something that our kids
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be subjected to.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: It gets a lot of support in terms of ending
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: how we use them. Right now, the majority of scholars
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: and people who work in the space understand that we
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: overuse and misuse them. And we've been doing that for
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: twenty years, and our goal has been to use them
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: to close the achievement gap, but that's not how you
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: close the achievement gap. You close it by providing early
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: child education and other things. Right, So a lot of
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: people still would like to see them go away, but
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: there's a powerful lobby that wants to keep testing proliferating
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: because there's a lot of money and standard tests. That
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: same lobby works in alignment with, like the charter school lobby,
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: because there's a relationship between standardized test scores, charter schools,
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: and actually making a profit. And that's why you see
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: a lot of like celebrities and entertainers open in charter schools. Yes,
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: they want to open them schools and give back and
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: do well for the community, but there's also a profit
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: to be made in charter schools, which is why I
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: shout out to Lebron James. He opened up a public school,
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: which I appreciate, but yeah, for me, like, our kids
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: are brilliant in a variety of ways, and our people
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: are brilliant, our culture is brilliant, and trying to reduce
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: our intelligence to a standardized test score takes away our
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: natural brilliance and intelligence. So for me, it was always about, Okay,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: what does research tell us and what do we know
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: that we need to do in schools to really put
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: our kids in a position to drive creativity, innovation, STEM,
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: financial literacy, project based learning. These are civics, Like, these
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: things are not part of the school curriculum and if
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: they were, our kids will graduate better prepared to be entrepreneurs,
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: to be you know, to start the new tech company,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: to do the different things that I know and we
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: know they're capable of doing. So we're actually going to
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: introduce a bill and pushing to end and you will
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: standardized testing and give states the flexibility on how they
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: want to how they want to go about doing it.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: And uh, that's going to be a big We're going
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: to introduce that soon.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: So let's let's have this lobbyist conversation. So all right,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: so lobbyists controlled politicians for the most part, right, yes,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: So the lobbyists, Uh, you got the tobacco lobbyist Israel,
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: you got you said, the prison lobbyists. And they put
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: pressure on politicians and they say, what did that I
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: can do? They say, they say, we'll fund your campaign,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: but we need this done and if you don't do this,
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: then you're not gonna be like, we will stop funding
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: you're gonna fund your opposition, yes, and you're gonna.
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: Make life hard for you.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: Correct, So explain the process.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so Street J Street? So J Street actually endorsed me.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: That's what all little lobbyists are located.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Right, No, no, no, J Street is a pro Israel Jewish
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: organization that's fighting for a two state solutions in Israel.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: What's the what's the street in we call K Street?
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: I want to say it's K Street. Again, I don't
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: know because I'll meet with them, but it's K Street.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: That's where all the lobbyists have office in K Street.
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: Correct.
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: So basically when I'm at work, I just see mad
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: white people en suits. I have no idea who they are,
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: what they're doing walking around, just meeting with everybody. Right,
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: So that that's basically what it is. So I forget
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: the policy. But corporations have figure it out. How they
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: use the fourteenth Amendment where corporations are now considered people
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: and money is considered free speech. And because of that
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: dynamic people can lobbyists can create independent expenditures and super
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: packs and fun congressional campaigns at an unlimited rate where
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: they could spend any amount of money they want to
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: fund the congressional campaigns. Now, someone like me who don't
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: work with super packs, I only take individual donations, right,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: so my average donation is about forty bucks and the
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: max you could give me is fifty eight hundred for
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: an election cycle. But through the super pac people could
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: throw ten fifty hundred thousand in there and not even
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: have to disclose where the money came from, which is
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: called dark money, and control how the election cycle works.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: So it's not just members of Congress. Is media because
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: they pay for television ads, social media ads and all
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: of that and push the narrative that they want through
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: propaganda to make sure one person wins, one person loses.
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: And so.
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: You know, if.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: Phizer, you know, pharmaceutical company, any pharmaceucal company supports a
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: bill that they want to see us support, they'll call
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: us and ask us to support a bill and tell
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: us why and not but any lobby any uh, and
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: they'll tell.
• 30:35
  Speaker 6: Us why, and then they'll.
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: A conversation will be had around you know, come to
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: this event, let's have a conversation. Let us do a
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: fundraiser for you, et cetera, et cetera, pretty much putting
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: money in your war chest to get you ready for
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: the next race. And again, someone like me, the squad,
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: we don't take any corporate money, so we don't really
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: fall into that, but the majority of my colleagues all do.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: And that's why when people say why don't things get
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: done in Washington, it's because of big money in politics.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: That's like the short quick answer, because big money stacks
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: on top of big money, and Republicans are you know,
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: you know, I don't want to get partis in here,
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: but Republicans tend to give big tax breaks to the
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: wealthiest individuals and corporations, and then those wealthy individuals then
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: reinvest in not just stock buybacks, but also like congressional campaigns,
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: Senate campaigns, super packs, stark money, et cetera, so that
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: they can make sure people that will can you just
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: continue to support their wealth, will be re elected every
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: year going forward.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: So you're the only male member of the squad, Yes, sir, Yeah,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: So I mean obviously you have these packs and you
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: have these obvious lobbyists. Because running a campaign is super
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: it could be expensive, right, So if you're taking like,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I don't think people really understand the price associated with
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: running a successful campaign. Can you talk about that.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: So when I decided, I decided to run in my
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: head spring twenty nineteen for the election in twenty twenty
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: and first thing I did. First of all, I never
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: ran for any office before in my life, but I
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: did the math as I started thinking about it. The
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: previous election cycle, Congressman Elliot Ingle, who used to be
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: the congressman, had won with only twenty two thousand votes.
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: Even though there's like, what.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: Three hundred thousand registered Democrats in the district, only thirty
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: thousand people voted and he won with twenty two thousand posts.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: I'm like, damn, this dude's in Congress making decisions that's
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: impacting all our lives with only twenty two thousand votes.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: So I said to myself, I was like, I could
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: I could knock on twenty three thousand doors myself and win.
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: That was my mindset.
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: So I started calling family and friends and just telling
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: them I was thinking about running. What they think, just
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: getting feedback, and everybody was like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: everybody except my wife and my mother in law and
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: my mother.
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: Uh, everybody else's.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: Was pretty was pretty cool with it. So, but you
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: don't know what you're getting into. So when I when
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: I started calling, I found this organization called Justice Democrats,
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: which is the same organization that endorsed the Squad and
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: helped them to win. So when they met me, they
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: was like, Yeah, we're gonna endorse you too. You're gonna
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: be our first endorsement since AOC, and we're gonna help
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: you hit the ground running. So because of them and
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: because of their their weight, because of the Squad, when
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: I when I launched it was it hit the cover
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: of the New York Times is a story and that
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: helped us generate initial money to print flyers that we
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: then started giving out as we were knocking on doors.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: And this was a year out. But even before that,
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: first thing I did was call everybody in my cell
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: phone and tell them I was running and asked them
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: to donate to the campaign whatever they could afford. But
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: I was asking like depending on you know, you know
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: who got a little bit of money, so you asked
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: for like a thousand, or you know someone who don't
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: got that much money asked for like one hundred, two
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: hundred whatever. So I called everybody on my phone, raised
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: like thirty thousand just from my phone. The article hit
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: raised another couple thousand and then a big part of
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: running is just calling complete strangers for money, like just
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: just you know. What we tried to do is call
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: people who had donated to like Bernie Sanders, Leana Prasley's squad,
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: people donated to other politicians who are like minded. So
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: we'll call them and be like, I'm Jamal Bowman running
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: for Congress near sixteen, I'm endorsed by the Justice Democrats.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: Boom boom for I'm an educated boom. And then they'll
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: be like, all right, I'll send you. And then we
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: was doing that like thirty to forty hours a week,
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: you know. And at the beginning, I was still working
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: full time as a principal, which I ultimately resigned a
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: few months later. And then you're just doing a bunch
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: of calls and meeting greets constantly to get yourself out there.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: So that was it, and we raised, we were raising.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: We raised two point six million overall my first cycle,
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: which is good. But the reason why it jumped to
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: a high level, we were at like seven hundred and
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: fifty thousand, and then Congressman ain't gona made a big mistake.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you heard the hot mic moment
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: but he says something on the hot mic and it
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: was caught and when that happened, it went viral and
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: we raised like one hundred grand that day, ninety grand
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: the next day, and average raising seventy grand every day
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: up until election. So George Floyd was murdered. There were
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: protests all over the country, protests on Fordham Road with
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: some property was damaged and elected the leaders. Elected leaders
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: came through uh To to have a press conference to
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: you know what elected leaders do, calm down on the
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: shutting property whatever. So he you see him coming to
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: the screen, coming to the shot where they're at the podium,
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: and he asked to speak. I guess he arrived late.
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: He asked to speak, and Ruben Diaz Jr. Was telling
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: him like, now we got a lot of speakers. You
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, it's pandemonium right here. We don't
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: have time.
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: Let you speak.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: And he pulls down his mask and he says, I
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: if I didn't have a primary, I wasn't care. And
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: Rubert was like, what did you say?
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: You said it again.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: He was like, if I didn't have a primary, I
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: wasn't care. So I didn't see this happen in real time.
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: Someone I was doing call time and someone hit me.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: He was like, you heard what Ingle just said. I
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: was like, well, you talking about it? Like he said,
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: if he didn't didn't have a primary, wouldn't care. I
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: was like, I don't know what you're talking the about.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: I'm doing calls on. It was like, go to Facebook Live,
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: rewind to the beginning and watch it. So we watched
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: it and I'm like, oh shit. So we had the
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: westapp chat with the comms team and I'm like, Yo,
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: did y'all see this? There's like now. I was like, yo,
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: rewind to this moment when Ingle comes in.
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: They saw it.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: They they cut it, and they tried to give it
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: to News twelve Westchester and they didn't know what they had.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: They didn't understand what's going on. So we gave it
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: to New York one and by the end of that
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: day this was the morning. By the end of the
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: day had one point one million views and it and
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: it led every local news station across the country. And
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: that's how we were able to raise.
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: That money and ride that momentum.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: And next day we got the LC endorsement, then Bernie
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: and then Elizabeth Warren.
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: It was just crazy man.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: But yeah, we you know, so we were able just
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: one last thing because we were able to raise that money.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: You know, they had all these negative attack ads and
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: these commercials where they were attacking me for not paying
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: my taxes twenty years ago. Like so I completely forgot
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: it was actually wrong because when I looked it up,
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: I actually paid them. But you know, the ads were like,
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: you know, type in Jamal Bowman, then you'll see that,
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: you know, he doesn't pay his taxes. And the funny
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: thing about that is wear one the money we raised
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: was helpful in counteracting those, so they didn't have a
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: big impact. But also too, it made me more like
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: indeering with the people because people was like, yo, I
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: owe way more than that. You're trying to say way
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: more than.
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: That right now, you know.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: So it obviously all worked out and that's all they
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: had because you know former Congressman know it was there
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: thirty one years chair the Foreign Affairs Committee. You know,
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: his most important topic was supporting the state of Israel.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: And he had neglected the district, you know, Mount Vernon Yonkers.
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: They hadn't seen him. He didn't even live in the
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: district anymore. So yeah, you know, he was able to
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: win big one, big, big.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: So how are you able to not take money from
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: corporates or a lobby is when I mean they can, well,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: all right, the first time I can see because it
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: kind of happened with the George Floyd situation. He says,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: so stupid, and then it just kind of what now
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: if they want to go against you and have an opposition,
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: how were you able to you know, withstand that.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So we just finished a primary cycle where I
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: had a couple of challengers who were able to raise
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: pretty decent money. You know, they spent almost a little
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: over a million against me to win, and we were
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: able to raise over a million again, and you know,
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: just so we could do our commercials and everything we
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: need to do. You know, Bernie Sanders created the blueprint
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: pretty much in twenty sixteen, so when he also doesn't
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: take corporate pack money, and when he ran, he was
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: raising tens of millions of dollars with just small dollar contributions.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's three hundred milli people in the country, right,
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: and if everyone gave a dollar, that's three hundred million, right,
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: So small dollar contributions from a large amount of people
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: who really want to see progressive change. Who really, you know,
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: recognize that, you know, our government has been inadequate for
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: a number of years, and we want to see change.
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: We want to see radical change and to be honest,
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: that was part of Trump's appeal as well, you know,
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: as outside of coming in, and he had a lot
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: of support as well. But Bernie created the blueprint. It
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: was modeled again by the squad. They were able to
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: raise good money and won. So when we ran, the
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: blueprint was already there. So when I started making my calls,
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: and that's a big part of it, just downing for dollars.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: When I started making my calls, there was already like
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: an infrastructure in place to support progressive candidates like me
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: with money to help us run for office. And now
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: you know, that's kind of in cruise control right now
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: because now I got like people have decided to give
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: x amount per month to my campaign.
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• 43:00
  Speaker 4: No matter what, so I did, like you know, a
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: few hundred to a few thousand dollars every day just
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: on the strength, you know, of what I've done so far.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: But we're actually trying to take that to the next level.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: And that's one of the things I wanted to mention,
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: you know when I knew I was coming here, is
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: the power of the black dollar. I know y'all talk
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: about that a lot, and the untapped potential of our money,
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: not just from a from a finance and an investment standpoint,
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: but from a political power standpoint. You know, if we
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: were to leverage our collective dollar, we could become a
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: powerful lobby that could then move things in Congress in
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: a way when.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: You said we could be in who's we well, black people, the.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: Black people, the culture people who are disengaged right now.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: So if there was a black lobby. Who's the strongest lobby.
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: In Washington, the Israel lobby.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: I would argue an apex apac apex of a strong lobby.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: The fossil fuel lobby is also very strong, probably pharmaceutical
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: health insurance.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: Let's use this ape as example. So a PAK is
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: the what is that staying for whatever? Israel?
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: It's a pro a pro Israel lobby.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, so all right, let's say black people wanted to
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: have a lobby that's strong. What break down that lobby? Like,
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: how do what does that lobby look like?
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: Well, they are using a pack as an example. They
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: are relentless and ensuring that members of Congress support the
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: state of Israel. Like what does that mean, like support
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: Israel's right to exist or else or we're not rocking
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: with you. I'm athlete, Yeah, take you off, Yes.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Take the dollars, take your position, and.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: Well yes, I mean so it's it's interesting because there
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: are members of Congress who are progressive who support the
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: state of Israel. I'm one included, right, but I also
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: talk about Palestinian rights and making sure that we end
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: the occupation and uplift Palestinian humanity. So I'm one of
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: a few who does this. The majority of members of
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Congress don't really talk about Palestinian rights enough right, and
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: that particular lobby APAC don't really care about that. They
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: rock with you support to say to Israel, you support
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: our right to defend ourselves exists, blah blah blah blah blah.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: Boom will support you, and we'll support you with big numbers.
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: And me and the Squad in particular, and other progressives
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: who are Squad adjacent, they come after us consistently, and
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: not just with money and challengers, but also with media
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: and newspapers.
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: You know, my primary opponents.
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: There's this publication called The Jewish Insider that was straight
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: up just they would just write mad glowing reviews about
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: my opponents and never wrote nothing glowing about me, you
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: know what I mean. So stuff like that also a
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: media impact, So boom they ride it out for Israel.
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: The question for me is black people, whether we riding
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: to dive for right? Like is it a nation? Is
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: it a ten point plan?
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: Is it?
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: Whatever it is? And then the pack or the lobby
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: can raise money in alignment with that agenda and make
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: sure members of Congress support that agenda to be supported
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: by this lobby that has yet to be created.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: So, like, what's the infrastructure in place like they have?
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: Like if we wanted to create a lobby, right, what
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: do you need to create a lobby?
• 46:33
  Speaker 6: Like?
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: You need all right, so obviously you have the money,
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: but you so you have to have fundraisers that are
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: connected to actually fundraising all over the world. In that case,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: they're fundraising money from all over the world.
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: Then you have leadership inside the actual lobby. Then you
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: have point people that's actually working on the ground reaching
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: out to the congressman, to the senators.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: Those are like lobbyss, lobby is Yeah, so all of
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: those fall into place when developing a lobby. Yes, well
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: under the umbrella of a pack, a political action committee,
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: political action committee. Yeah, so we have. So I ran
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: for Congress under the under bowman for Congress. That's just
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: my you know, it's actually a business when you think
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: about it, Boma for Congress. I ran for Congress. I
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: just recently started a leadership pack where it's called for
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: the Children Pack, where I'm going to be raising money
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: to support other progressive candidates and causes across the country
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: related to kids. They're also super packs and this is
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: where some of that dark money stuff comes into play.
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: The main point for me regarding this lobby piece when
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: I got to as soon as I won my election.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: The next day in my mail, I was hearing from
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: the pro life lobby. They sent me like twenty postcards
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: pro life protecting unborn blah blah blah blah boom. My
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: office consistent, consistently gets called from multiple lobbies about around
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: multiple issues. We rarely, if ever, get calls from a
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: black lobby.
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: For lack of a better.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: Term, that's an infrastructure that needs to be stronger. There
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: are pieces to it.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: But do you think that it's like, all right, so
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: like let's take Israel. They can have a main focus
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: for one issue. Yes, the state of Israel protected, make
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: sure it's thriving, whatever, But black people, it's so many
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: different issues. So it's like you got reparations, you got
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: criminal justice reform, you got education, and then so do
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: you think that that makes it harder? It would it
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: be easier to start a pack for one issue, like
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: a reparations pack just or like you know what I'm saying,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: you're trying to cover thirty five different things.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, right, and reparations could be that thing, because that's
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: the thing that kind of touches everything right. So, and
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: the thing about reparations, this is the Congress where reparations
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: was actually voted out of committee. So let me just
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: explain that real quick. When I introduce a bill, when
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: any member of Congress introduces a bill, that bill is
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: assigned to the committee based on the content the hrial forty,
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: the reparations bill, or the bill to form a committee
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: to study the potential need for reparations, that bill is
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: always assigned to the Judicial Committee, the excuse me, Judiciary Committee.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: This was the first Congress that that committee actually marked
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: it up, meaning they looked at the bill, they discussed
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: potential amendments, they had debate and conversation in committee, and
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: then it was voted on in committee to come out
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: of committee to now be brought to the floor for
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: a vote. First time it's happened in history. And it's
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: been introduced for thirty years in a row. Thirty yeah,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: thirty years in a row. But and it has two
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: hundred and sixteen co sponsors, and the magic number in
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: congresses to eighteen. You get to too, eighteen, you got
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: the votes you need for to pass. However, even though
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: it's not it has been voted out of committee.
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: It hasn't.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: We haven't taken the House floor vote on it yet. Now,
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: let's say there was a reparations lobby or a reparations
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: pack with big money. This is the key big money,
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: because there are people lobbying for reparations, they don't got
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: the big.
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: Money with them. With big money, and when.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: I say big money, you should say tens of millions.
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: Of dollars in this pack.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: That would help to lean on leadership, to lean on
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: members of Congress to push to make sure this bill
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: comes to the floor for a vote. Me also say
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: this because it's not it's about money. Money is a
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: big thing. Also, the Congressional Black Caucus and some of
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: the other caucuses, can we could do better to leverage
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: our power to make sure this bill comes to the
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: floor for a vote. And we don't doing enough of that.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: And that's where outside organizing and pushing us to do
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: it is really important. And that doesn't even take money.
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: That's just people agitating. So if the Congressional Black Caucus
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: theoretically was like we supporting no bill until reparation comes
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: to a full vote, we could do that. But we
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: haven't done that, which is very frustrating as a member
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: of the Black Caucus, because we have the numbers. No
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: bill can move through Congress without the Congressional Black Caucus.
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: The thing about it is, are we willing to take
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: the heat that's going to come from that? You know,
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: there's times in Congress where you got to make it.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: You know, we've done it this year where we've taken
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: votes that people didn't understand that were very controversial, and
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: we've been dragged, like very publicly for it for a
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: very long period of time. And the thing about that
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: is people use that to run against you. So you know,
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: people ran against me this cycle claiming, you know, my
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: lack support of Israel and I'm I'm an anti Semitic
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: and and you know I don't support jobs because I
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: vote against the infrastructure bill. And you know, it didn't
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: work because we we we always communicated honestly and authentically
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: with who we are. So anyway, it's the lobby, it's
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: the pack, and it's money behind it, but it's also
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: us just having the will and the courage to like
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: make decisions that will completely transform the system and leverage
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: our power in.
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: A real way.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so just really quickly, I got a
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: couple of questions. The difference between pack and superpack is
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: just the amount of money that's put into each.
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: Well super pack, And I may get this wrong, so
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: forgive me, but super pack is a pack where you
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: put all kinds of money into it, and it could
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: be undisclosed and fall under the umbrella dark money. And
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: that's where you get into a place where now we
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: don't have a democracy anymore, we have like a an
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: oligarchy where money is controlling all of it. So I
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: would not probably start a super pack because I don't
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: want to get into that world. Having said that, you know,
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: I've learned that politics is a dirty business. It's way
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: dirtier than the streets.
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: It's way thirty all of it.
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: Right, So and I don't mean dirty in a way
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: like I mean, yes, it's corrupt and grimy, but you
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: gotta be ready to fight, like for real, because they're
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: people there there, their lobbies and packs out there with
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: power that don't care if you live or die, if
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: you're from a certain group, if you don't support this shit,
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: if you don't support what they support, they don't care
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: what happens to you. So now that I peep, it's
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: like that. It's like, okay, now I'm gonna move differently,
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: you know. The second term.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: The other part was and you spoke about it right
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: in a bill. So I mean, obviously, as you look
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: at the economy now obviously infatians forty year high. When
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: you go into your office, you sit down like that,
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: like the process of creating the bill. What are the
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: things you're looking for, How you're trying to answer or
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: create solutions around the problem.
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: That's a great question.
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: So with the issue of inflation, a major component of
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: it is price gouging. So a lot of companies are
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: raising costs so that they can increase profit margins in
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: lieu of what's happening with the pandemic. So you know,
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: the economy was about to go into a depression. The
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: government infused money into the pockets of people through direct payments,
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: through the child tax credit, through some other means. Companies
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: saw people have more money and was like, we're going
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: to raise our prices a little bit just to make
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: sure we continue to make the profits we want. And
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: as a supply chain issue, which when you look at
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: supply and demand, you know, less supply more demand, high costs,
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: more profit right. So we introduced.
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: A few bills.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: One is the Emergency Price State Mobilization Act, and this
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: bill proposes empowers the President to put price caps on
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: certain goods, so price cap on rent, price cap on groceries,
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: price cap on gas, certain areas where we're like, give
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: the president authority to do this so that we can
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: survive this inflation and what's happening now, so that people
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: are not struggling as much. So that was one bill
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: we introduced. Another bill we introduced to something called the
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: Ending Corporate Greed Act, which would tax corporate profits for
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: a period of time at ninety percent so that we
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: can reinvest in the areas we need, like universal childcare,
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: because still we have millions of women who haven't returned
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: back to work. Now, ninety percent sounds like a lot,
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: but even their profits have been so high since the pandemic,
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: even if you tax their profits at ninety percent, they
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: still make more of a profit than they did before
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: the pandemic. So that's how much they've been they've been caking.
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: So those are two pieces of legislation. One other piece
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: that's not directly related to the inflation piece is something
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: we call the Babies Over Billionaires Act. So unrealized capital
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: gains right now is untaxed. It could be leveraged to
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: uh to borrow against and and help companies and individuals
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: to increase their wealth because it's not tax. The President
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: offered a tax on capital gains, so people can't build
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: their wealth without contributing. So we wrote a bill in
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: alignment with the President's asked there Babies over Billionaires. So
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: those are three pieces of legislation we introduced in response
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: to the current rated inflation. One other thing I want
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: to say about inflation. You know, their their flaws in
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: our economic system, in my opinion, because one of the
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: ways the Fed tries to control for inflation is to
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: raise interest rates to stop the borrowing, stop the flow
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: of money. What that does is also increase unemployment. And
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: so for the for inflation to be under control in
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: our current economic system, unemployment has to be a like
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: three four percent, which you know again I support, I
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: support the federal jobs Guarantee. I think everyone should be working.
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: I don't think we should have an economic system that
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: has to function based on a certain level of unemployment.
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: So there are fundamental aspects of our economy that need
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: to change.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Let me ask you this as far as reparation, since
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: we're added, what's your view of reparations?
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: We need it, not only do we need it. So
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: reparations is about repairing the harm of the past, right,
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: and so this country was founded on indigenous genocide and
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: the enslavement of Africans. And since then, even when the
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: enslavement was over, there have been laws that have continued
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: to negatively impact the black community. Right after the passages
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: of the thirteenth Amendment, after Lincoln was killed and the
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: new president took over, a piece of legislation called the
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: Homestead Act was passed. And the Homestead Act pretty much
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: gave as we expanded out west, the majority of that
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: new land, ninety percent of it was given the white people,
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: both native born and foreignborn, and African Americans by and
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: large weren't didn't.
• 58:42
  Speaker 6: Have privy to that.
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: So that land and what was the cities and towns
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: and villagers that was built on that land, well built
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: on that land, we weren't able to.
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: Benefit from that.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: So that's one sort of post slavery piece of legislation
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: that continues to impact black people negatively today. Of course,
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: the plan, of course, Jim Crow laws, of course Black
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: laws and all of that. In addition to that, black
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: banks were started and proliferated post slavery all across the country,
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: but they've never received the investments from the federal government
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: to help keep them solvent and to help them grow
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: into the investment banks that could be used to invest
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: back in the black community. It's a great book by
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: Mayors Baraduran, How the Other Half Banks, that tells the
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: story about how this works. In contrast to that Bank
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: of America used to be the Bank of Italy and
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: they became the Bank of America through investments from the
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: federal government to support its growth. Black banks have never
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: received that still to this day. One other piece of
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: legislation I want to focus on is the GI Bill
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: and the New Deal right so FA proved loans, low
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: interest rates, low costs, ninety seven percent went to white people,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: and blacks weren't allowed to access those loans at the
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: same rate. White flight occurred. They moved into these new suburbs,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: built their own communities. We were forced to stay in
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: a hood and fhad valued our communities simply because they
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: were black and red lined them. And that's why you
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: see us in the projects in underfunded communities and underfunded
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: and then connected to that, because local property taxes fund schools.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: Our schools continue to be underfunded as a result of that.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: So it's not just slave reparations for slavery. Is representation
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: reparations for slavery and everything that has come since then.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: And I haven't even mentioned mass incarceration which is another
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: and war on drugs.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: Right, But because of all of that, so you're in
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: a position to write legislation. Yes, okay, if you guys
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: write a bill, what does that look like? How much
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: money would you think it would be appropriate? Who gets it?
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: That's extremely important because how do we determine who should
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: get it? For in my brain, it should be black
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: people that can trace their history back to slavery. That
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: can be difficult because you don't have to give every
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: single person a test, right or you have to check
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: their records three five generations, which that's kind of a
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: tedious process.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, how do you do this? So there's a way
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: to do it. That's the reason for the HR forty
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: bill because the commission who will study all this and
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: present a report, they will also present.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: A way to get it done.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: Congress hasn't even had the courage to move forward with
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: forming a commission to even study it, so we're not
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: even that step one, even though there's many studies that
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: have been done around the importance of this impact of
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: the facto and de jaw racism. So the point is,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: let's figure out how to do it right and as
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: a country, let's go through a process of truth and reconciliation,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: similar to Rwanda after the genocide, similar to South Africa
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: after apartheid, Germany, Germany after the Holocaust, let's go through
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: a process of truth and reconciliation and figuring out what
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: recon reparations could look like. We haven't done that, and
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: there have been other groups that receive reparations, you know,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: Japanese Americans for internment, Jewish Americans and Jews in Germany
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: as well, and other groups. So there's precedent international and nationally.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: It's just the consistency of white supremacy and anti black
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: racism lives and breaths in every aspect of American society,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: in the halls of Congress, in the hearts and minds
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: of people black and non black, we often just you know,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: take what we could get and don't fight for more.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, we've that HR forty is one bill.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: We've written other bills, and we are going to write
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: more bills that deal with pieces of it. So there's
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: a bill we're going to be working on called the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: twenty first Century Homestead Act, which looks to make the
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: investments in redline communities to help build black economic strength
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: within those communities.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: We're going to be writing that bill. We've written a bill.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: Called the Green New Deal for Public Schools, which saw
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: that does the same thing, but with a focus on
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: investing in public schools that have been underfunded and used
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: in those schools as models for the renewable energy revolution
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: that's coming right now.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: One of the issues that you didn't bring up, but
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you're passionate about student loan debt. Obviously, we
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: know disproportionately if you look at PELL grants, the majority
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: of the people who apply for them look like us.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: And right now President Biden's student debt cancelation has been paused.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: So I want to get your thoughts around that and
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: the impact that student loan debt has had on our community.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I mean it sucks that it was paused.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: I wish Biden would have went bigger. I mean, we
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: was pushing him to cancel at all. He was talking
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: about fifty thousand, and he landed on ten thousand. You know,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: the president's are a rabid capitalists, you know, and I'm
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: not necessarily against capitalism, but there's just toxic, predatory nature
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: of it that's been destruct There've been student loans as
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: part of that. You know, I'll use me as an example.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: You know, my mother, my whole life is telling me
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: I'm going to college and willing and of going to college.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: So when I graduated high school, I was like, okay,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: I'm going to college. I played football, so that helped
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: a little bit with costs. But going to college and
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: paying for college two completely different things. So when you
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: go in that way, you know, filled out the application,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: Look at this bill. How you going to pay this bill? Well,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: we got these loans for you. I just took them,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. I just took the loans,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: didn't understand interest rates, figured I would get a job,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: just pay it back, you know, done deal. And I'm
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: not unique, you know, I mean millions of people have
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: done this, disproportionately black and brown dispropartially black women.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 6: And now where I'm twenty.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: Three years as a professional since I graduated college and
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: still paying back student loans. I've been constituents where in
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: this sixties still paying back student loans, crazy interest rates,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: predatory practice. You know, we believe that a large portion
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: should be canceled. And now, you know, we didn't talk
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: much about we haven't talked much about voting and importance
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: of it. But this is like another example, right, because
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: if lobbies, packs, groups consistently vote in elections at every
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: level of government and we don't our people, our culture,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: whatever you call it, don't, then they're going to make
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: laws that just control and impact the world and control
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: and impact our lives, whether that's a student loan issue
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: or reparations issue.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 6: Or whatever it is.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: So yeah, we have a Supreme Court now and many
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: in the Court who you know are conservative aligned with Trump,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: and you know, to them is put yourself up by
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: your bootstraps, even though some people don't even have boots.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 6: So yeah, man's crazy.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: And this is a big issue across race, across communities,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: like people knew they were preyed upon, and even people
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: who are trying to be diligent and paying it back.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: When you're doing that, you can't afford to start a family,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: can't afford to buy a home, can't afford to invest.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 6: The way the way you want.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: So yeah, it's another example of this is why your
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: show is great and the education piece of your show
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: because people miseducated, they make decisions and they pay those
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: decisions back for the rest of their lives.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: So, Congressional Black Caukies, what's your thoughts on that? What
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: do you mean is it beneficial? Is it something that
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: you know?
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we yes, so, yes, it is beneficial.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: It in many ways, it's like a home to to
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: newly elected black members of Congress.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 6: You know, it's good to.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: Good to be there with people who who look like
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: you and have similar experiences. It's it's you know, very
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: rooted in civil rights and black church traditions and rightly so,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: you know, when you think of John Lewis and Elijah
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: Cummins and others who who are some of the co
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: founders of it and and champions of it, you know,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: their entire career, that makes sense. But now there's a
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: shift happened, happening and if you will because you have
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: people like myself, Ayana, Corey Bush, Johanoman, and others who
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: are newer, who are younger, who are coming in with
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: different ideas and and and thoughts on how we should
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: how we should govern. And it's also built on the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: seniority system, so like you know, the ogs, you know,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: they kind of they kind of control a lot of things,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: and and all of Congress is built during the seniority system.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: So you know what that does is that kind of
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: squashes young, progressive, innovative voices. And then traditionally in the
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: black community, if you know, you don't really question or
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: talk back to a Southern black man who's of a
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: certain age, you know what I mean. So there's some
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: of those dynamics at play. And yeah, there's been many
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: times where you know, I have wanted the CBC to
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: be more for lack of a better term, radical when
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: it comes to certain things in pushing back. But this
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: is my first term, so I've actually kind of sometimes
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: take a step back and just like learn, learn the game,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: how it works. And I'm planning to be much more
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: assertive this next term coming up, So speak.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: About that, all right, Congressional black Hawks, how many people
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: doing it?
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 6: Something.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: How many people are Democrats?
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 6: All of them?
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: All?
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: So this this is an issue. This is another issue
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: because one thing about like the Jewish superback is that
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: there's Jewish people on the Republican side and there's Jewish
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: people on the Democratic side, and they lobby on both.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: Sides a packed us, specifically on both sides.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, so black people vote ninety five percent Democrat. The
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: whole entire Congressional Black Caucus is Democrat. That's not leverage.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: You're a Democrat, so obviously you might be, you know,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: a little biased in a situation. What do you think
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: that it's extremely harmful that we're so one sided in
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: this situation.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: I want to say extremely harmful, and I'm going to answer,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: and it's going to sound like I'm evading the question,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: but I'm not to be much more political education and
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: engagement in our community so that we could build the
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: political power that we need. Because starting the conversation with
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: Republican democrat and we shouldn't always be Democrat and we
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: should listen to everybody else.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 6: That is very true.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: It is true statement. In the current climate of what
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: the Republicans are doing, in my opinion, is harmful to
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: Rock with them right now because they they just supported
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: an attack on the capital insurrection, the first since the
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: War of eighteen twelve. And I have Republican colleagues who
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: are blatant, like white supremacist racist Tucker Carlson want to
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: go to civil war, support the great Replacement theory like
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: they're members of the Republican Party who rock like that
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: and say that out loud. So in my opinion at
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: this moment, rocking with them is dangerous, all things being equal,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: where we all receive a political education and we leverage
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: our collective political power and our money, we should be
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: having those broad conversations. I also think we're at a
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: point or getting to a point where the two party
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: system is obsolete because life is not a binary It's
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: not this or that. There's so much diversity, not just
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: racially and culturally and economically, but in terms of ideas.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: So I support us figuring out we need democracy reform overall,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: and part of that is really looking at the two
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: party system and how it functions. Another part that's ending
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: the filibuster in the Senate, which is a rule that
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: was just put into place to stop civil rights legislation
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: from moving forward. The philibuster is the rule that requires
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: a super majority in the Senate for a bill to pass.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: It came about I'm forgetting one year when a lot
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 4: of civil rights legislation was trying to move through the
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: Senate and some racistize senators, I'm going to forget the
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: names put this rule in place because they knew that
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: there was no way that whoever is trying to move
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: the civil rights legislation would get two thirds of the
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: Senate to vote for it. And ever since that's been
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: put in place, it's just still there, and it's a
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: simple Senate rule that can be changed by the majority
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: leader and a civil vote at any time. The problem
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: with the philipbuster also is there's something called talking philibuster.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: At the very least, you have to debate your position
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: on a bill, and then at the end of the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: debate you take a vote and a simple majority wins
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: in terms of how to move forward. But right now
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: there's not even a talking philibuster. There's no debate. They
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: could just vote whatever they want and keep it moving.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: So in terms of democracy reform, you know, taking a
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: fresh look at the two party system, taking a fresh
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: look at the philibuster. Actually, my opinion just ended it
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: taking a look at the electoral college as well, because
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: the electoral college one person, one vote, and the democracy
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: should decide the presidency. The electoral college doesn't allow for
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: that to happen. And what happens is you'll have states
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: with smaller populations having more as much or more power
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: than the majority of the American people, what some refer
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: to as minority rule. So right now in the Senate,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: even though it's fifty to fifty, the fifty Democrats actually
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: represent more people than the fifty Republicans because.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: They n't even know who the electoral college officials.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: Are, delegates and superdalcas. I'm in Congress. I still don't
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 4: even understand how that works. But what I do understand
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: is we have a system in place right now where
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: we have members of Congress, House, and Senate who represent
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: less people but wield more power. That's not democracy, and
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 4: the filibuster is one way where they continue to yield
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: that power.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: So the political education, I'm glad you brought that up
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: because it almost feels like, how do we get it?
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: We saw over one hundred and forty million people vote
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: for the general election, and a lot of people come
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: around that, but the midterm election is here, and I
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: don't feel like the same amount of awareness. Right if
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: you look at players' nual elections are very important, but
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: these localized officials are the ones who can change your
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: immediate life, and so we don't even look at it
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: like that. How do we get the political education to
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: really to get people to really understand like, these localized
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: elections are the ones that are changing your daily life.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: We need to destroy and read build our public education
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: system because many aspects of the curriculum and the schedule
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: and the structure are obsolete. There's absolutely no way we
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: should allow our kids in the democracy to graduate not
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: really having a clear political education. And there's nothing in
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: place right now to make that happen. And this is
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: why you know cities who don't have mayoral control. City
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: New York City has mayoral control, but even that should
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: we should do more organizing and push there. But this
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: is why local school board elections matter. So if you
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: got a school board seven people in Greenberg, for example,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: and you could get four people who believe what we
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: believe on that school board, now that now you have
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: a majority on that school board, and that school board
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: decides what happens with the superintendent. The school superintendent's work for.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 6: The school board.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: So the school board decides, we want to change this
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: person and bring in somebody else who's going to bring
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: in the financial literacy curriculum, is going to bring in
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: project based learning, it's going to bring in STEM, civic education,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 4: all of it. Now that school board can transform education
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: in that school district. And this is where Republicans are
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: way better than Democrats at you know, because they move
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: us to unify front. They fight like their lives depend
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: on it, and they fight from the school board to
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: the president. And that's how we're gonna have to fight,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: regardless of your party, to get what we want. And because,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: in my opinion, because we've been so beaten down by
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: miseducation and lack of resources in the system overall, we
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: often unplugged. And when I say we, I mean black men,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: I mean black people, I mean the culture. And we
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: can't unplug because we just have so much power that
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: we just haven't begun to use yet. And I hope
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: and I hope to be a part of changing that.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: Well, you have this conversation all day, because there's a
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: lot to talk about. The man thank you for coming.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: Of course, a lot of education. That's that's extremely important
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: because I feel like people are educated on the political
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: process and there's so much, like I said, we're just
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: scratching the service, there's so much more stuff that actually
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: cover and you know, it's good. Our whole platform is
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: built around education, whether it's financial education, but the political
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: education goal is just as important. So it's important, and
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: you know, I appreciate you having that. It wasn't a
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: partisan conversation, you know, something where it's more so like
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: in an endorsement and something. It was just more so
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: it's just the education and that's something that's extremely important
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: and that's what we do. So thank you for coming
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: and appreciate that and thank you. How can the people
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: stay in touch with you? What do you want to
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: tell the people with some last words that you want.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 6: To Yeah, absolutely so.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: Uh, you know, you can go to Bowman dot house
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: dot gov to look at you know, to sign up
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 4: for a newsletter.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 6: Please do that.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: You know, it just helps you to stay informed on
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: everything that we're doing, and it helps you to look
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: at legislation that we're working on and led us to
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: buiden all all of our advocacy So that's on the
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 4: that's on the official congressional side. On the campaign side,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: you go to Bowman for Congress dot com learn more
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: about the campaign, and you could easily find us on
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: social media at Jamal Bowman.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 6: And why I just want to.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 4: Emphasize, uh, the importance of leveraging our collective economic and
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: political power. We we have come so far historically in
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: terms of our accomplishments and what we've survived and the
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: power we've built individually and in small pockets. But just
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: if we could figure out how to bring that together
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: in the same way that I see these lobbyists trying
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: to come at me in Congress right now and how
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: And I didn't want to be this long winded, but
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: I could get to I could go back to Washington
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: on a Monday. They could give us the schedule for
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: the wee to tell us what we're going to be
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 4: voting on whatever, And a particular lobby can call leadership
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: on a Tuesday and be like, y'all, I want y'all
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: to vote on this spill tomorrow and we'll vote on
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: it on Wednesday. That's the power that some groups are
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: wilder in Congress right now, and we can wield the
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: same power through unity and our collective finances and political strength.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: That's powerful. Like I told you the day I walked
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: into your school, I felt inspired. I feel inspired again.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: I wish you know success, my brother. Thank you. You
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: didn't notice this, but I read that you're a huge
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: Wu Tank fan. I'm a what huge Wu Tank fan? Yes, sir, yes,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: I put up thirty six chambers.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: I did notice it. I was trying to keep my composure.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: All Right, here we go, best Wu Tang album, shit,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: collective or solo.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: First of all, what you have around here? People can't
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: see everything. So you got you got that? Uh but
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 4: oh I ain't see that.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna be honest with you. I had I
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: had odb up there, but I think let me go
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: a little different.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 4: Damn, And you got the Cuban Lynx joint, got shook ones.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: Best Wu Tang album. This is the it's the hardest
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: question to answer. Obviously, I would probably this is a
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: weak answer. I mean, will Tank Forever? I think is
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: incredible and a very underrated album. It's very underrated. Bab
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 4: would probably have to go with. So probably have to
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: go with Thirsty Champions, even though see if it's too hard,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: I count only like my top five albums, top ten
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: albums probably have like three or four wool Tang albums
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: only built for Cuban links. Is strucking incredible, that's the
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: right answer. Like that's like, how you good?
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: We put I am Man up there too.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 6: I see it.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 4: And it's arguable and supreme plient tell us arguable.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: Arguable might be better than that.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: This is true.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: This is true.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 4: These dudes are like, this is incredible. So yeah, man,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: I mean that when that came out, Purple Take the
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 4: Purple Tap, and when all these when every album came out,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: I was going to the store every day just waiting
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: for the next blutang album to drive. And when that dropped,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 4: I was so tired, Like but I didn't allow myself
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: to fall asleep. I stayed up to listen to the
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: whole album, and by the time it got to I
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 4: would say rainy Days. It was just like, yo, this
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 4: is this is incredible and it's so perfect that you
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 4: got it right next to ill.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 6: Matic that's the centerpiece.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, another conversation, But thank.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 6: You for having me, man.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you coming man.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: Thank you guys rocking with us seek next week peace.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 5: My graduates from my school being force bad drop bag
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: drop my drop bad drop.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
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  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas. Man of Venezuelan charged with
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  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States
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  Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 1:23:36
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  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
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  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported, you will
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