Latest / Coconut Justice / CJP #47: Matt Conroy ( IL-5 ) Pt 1
Transcript
- Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey everybody. So my sister that lives in Chicago, she likes to get on my ass because I will, I will bag on whether it's the Cubs versus the Sox, whether it's Chicago versus the suburbs. I go in and she has been telling me to stop the Chicago hate. So to show love to the suburbs of Chicago, you guys meet. Hey, what's good? Matt Conroy lost his dad on September 11th. His mom raised him and his siblings and taught them the importance of living in service to their community. He went on to work with Habitat for Humanity. He got his degree in economics. He became successful across several industries, including manufacturing, real estate, tech, and financial services. Matt Conroy running for Illinois's 5th District. Welcome, Matt. Now he wants to take all of that knowledge and experience to Washington to represent Illinois's fifth congressional district. This is my conversation with Matt Conroy. Before we get into it, remember to go to coconutjustice.com to get you some clothes that I think would look good on you. Let's go. Matt Conroy: Carlos, thanks for having me. How you guys doing? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Doing good, doing good. And by guys, he means C4 explosives is here everybody. Yeah. Matt Conroy: ⁓ Mike too, yeah. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt Conroy: I got no hate towards the White Sox. I live on the North Side. It's just easier to go to Cubs games. White Sox have the better food, but they have an absolutely garbage product on the field. I think we can agree there. ⁓ But yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, I give you that one. I give you that one. It's all good. I'll be back on. Matt Conroy: He's going to live. I mean, Jerry Ransdorf is an absolute terrible owner. Which it's kind of ironic because I mean, I know he's turned control basically over to his son, at least for the Bulls, it feels like. And the Bulls product itself is not great, but like they're investing billions of dollars in that like area right around United Center that's all parking lots. And they're going to build a bunch of mixed use housing and office space. Cefore X. Plosives: It's terrible. Matt Conroy: building a concert venue. They're trying to like make investments in that area. The Green Line Daimons stop opened up a couple years ago like two, two block stores. No, that's going to be in the South Loop at the 7-8 basically like Roosevelt and like State Street. So you can kind of see like when you're driving in from like Indiana and you're going up 90-94, you can kind of see like a big empty like like vacant area. That's where it's going. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. In the new soccer field out there? Okay. Okay. Cefore X. Plosives: All right. That's pretty cool. They're going to do a like, ⁓ if you could take the template of Wrigleyville and put it anywhere, like it's going to be, it's going to flourish. So if they're doing a little bit of that, think that'll, that'll bode well for the team and the community. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's what the bears wanted to do in Arlington Heights. That's the only reason I was like Arlington Heights. Okay, it's Arlington Heights, but if they're gonna build it in a way kind of like Wrigleyville. Matt Conroy: Yeah, I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'd be open to seeing that. Cefore X. Plosives: Better than Hammond. Matt Conroy: My, honestly, I want them to stay in Soldier Field. Like that's my thing. Look, they have money left that they owe the city on the lease. They should continue to stay there, pay off their debt and their obligation. in, who was it? Lori Lightfoot, in her last day in office, she released a plan to basically build a dome or build a roof over it and renovate that entire area. I believe it was called One Central and build housing and mixed use buildings with office space, hotels. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: shopping malls, like live entertainment, like over the train tracks and over Lake Shore Drive right there, kind of creating like a new neighborhood. I think that's exactly what they should do and invest in. ⁓ I wouldn't put a roof over Soldier Field. mean, look, we're talking about 10 games a year. Like don't spend the money. Like it's cool that it's still one of the only outdoor fields or, you know, one of the historic fields, even though it is ugly with that spaceship on top. But, you know, it, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha ha ha. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Matt Conroy: It makes it so like if you build and like when you like look at like the Rams and these other teams like it's just gonna be a track meet, you know, if you become a fully indoor league with, you know, turf and we don't need to spend billions of dollars of taxpayer money to provide them infrastructure or provide them tax benefits or whatever, just so they can host one Super Bowl every what we'll call it six, seven years, something like that. It's not worth it, you know, so Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: I'm fully supportive of them staying where they are. And you know, if the city needs to make investments there to get additional mass transit, because it's a nightmare getting out of that would be good because concerts, you know, concerts, other events, the convention centers right there, like there is an opportunity for you to make that kind of like a lakefront district. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, always getting out of downtown Chicago or that area nearby the lake is always just a travesty to try to get out of. Fourth of July is wonderful, but when it's done, when the fireworks are done, sweet Jesus, it takes like four hours just to catch a train or a cab or something. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah, and there's this other plan, it's called, oh man, I think it's by Starline 2034, I believe is the exact name of it. I can send it to you guys after so you can link it. But they actually have this plan to link the Metro, link regional rail, build additional subways, kind of like the Brown Line extended out from Kimball out to Jefferson Park. So if you live in Lincoln Park, if you live in Roscoe, you can just take the Brown Line basically to O'Hare. And it just like is looking to completely connect and reconfigure the way that people move about the city. in complete honestly, the more you invest in mass transit, the better it is for everyone. Look, if you're someone who rides mass transit all the time, like I do, it means more frequent service, cleaner, safer, more people are gonna ride it. You're gonna get more revenue from fares. The more people... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and you're proving that people want to use it. Matt Conroy: Yes, and the more people you get taking it, the fewer cars there are on the road. So people who still elect to drive or have a trip that is not serviceable by mass transit, they'll have less cars, their drive time will speed up. And when you combine those two, you're also making an impact on climate change because you have less emissions put in the air, you're gonna have less like rubber and PFAS from the tires, which people never think about as part of the emissions, they only think gas, like that is a big thing too. We have to make massive investments in mass transit, not just in Chicago, but around the entire country. Yeah, it's embarrassing how we black compared to the rest of the world. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): everywhere. And environmentally speaking, they know for a fact that this tire residue or junk that the tires are making mixed in with brake dust, mixed in with the exhaust, mixed in with all that. If you live close to a highway, your chances of getting sick are exponentially worse or higher or however you want to say it. So. Being able to have clean air just specifically from cars alone, and again, not just the exhaust, it's all the stuff that comes out of off of these cars that are affecting the quality of your life. Whereas you can take an electric train and it's way cleaner. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah, and even when you look at just driving versus mass transit, like the other example I give is you look at areas in cities, not just Chicago, New York, ⁓ know, Seattle, DC, Boston, like areas that are serviced by mass transit, property values tend to be higher, ⁓ schools tend to be better, businesses tend to last longer. When you look at neighborhoods that are underserved, they're not provided the same economic opportunity. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: like on the south side and west side of Chicago, we rip away funding from their schools. We don't provide them any mass transit options and they're forced to drive and rely on cars, which the average new car now costs over $50,000. Like how are people supposed to provide that? And it's just, it's just crazy that we continue to do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Highway expansions, like what are we doing with that? That's the stupidest thing in the world. We should be condensing them down. Like, you know, you guys have lived in a Chicago area. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Salaam. Yeah. Matt Conroy: right past O'Hare going west or northwest, it's five lanes in each direction. It's like, we don't need that type of lane. Yeah, look, we don't need that type of lane. We don't need that type of lane capacity. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): how many people are going to Rofford? People are trying to escape Robert. ⁓ Cefore X. Plosives: Here we have live. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then all that lane capacity and they just continue to put tolls on them. Matt Conroy: I'm okay with tolls. I think tolls are a good way to help pay for some of the offset, some of the costs, whether it be the labor that has to go into it, the maintenance, ⁓ it also can be collected to help pay for schools and local services in those communities. Probably not. No one knows where Illinois tax money goes. That's why we're in such a fucking nightmare. New York implemented congestion pricing and you... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Is that what it's being used for though? Matt Conroy: all the stats and everything show it's a huge success. Like that is a pilot program that Chicago should start. Like use the loop, West Loop and like River North slash like near Northside. Like just start there, start small, see how it does. And then kind of if you need to expand it to like up to North Ave, you know, getting some of those areas, like that is how you do it. That is how you build like a, in my mind, like a city and a transportation system for the future. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I want to go back to, would, yeah, yeah, for real. Dude, that's the high speed rail collection of words is triggering because they've been talking about high speed rail going from San Francisco to LA for as long as I've lived out here. And they spent so much money for nothing. Matt Conroy: High speed rail too. Cefore X. Plosives: Thank you. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's bananas. Matt Conroy: Yeah, so I lived in LA for a few years. I lived in Santa Monica and like, I heard all about it too. And like, I think where they really messed up, excuse me, messed up that project is the fact that they didn't start with two population centers. The fact that they started in the middle and they're like, yeah, we'll connect it at the end. It's like, no, you're not going to do that. You know, that's like designing a house and being like, you know what we're going to do first? On suite bathroom. And then we're going to build the foundation. It's like, no, no, no, no, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Me too. Cefore X. Plosives: So. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, I really want a super, I want a super dope tub. Cefore X. Plosives: We'll open the second floor first. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like, no, you should have you should have started in San Francisco and you should have started or Oakland or whatever like, like place you could do in the Bay Area. And then you need your hub in LA and then connect it and then build in the middle there, you know, have your stops in in Bakersfield or or wherever it is like that you needed to stop along the way, like have it do it like that. And then once you see the fact that you can get from Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Matt Conroy: what would be downtown San Francisco to downtown LA, and we'll call it two and a half hours, as opposed to even flying, because people don't realize where the airports are located in Los Angeles. Like it's going to take you three and a half plus hours minimum door to door for that. Like that is right there, the complete game changer. And then if you actually had that, you could produce some missions, like you would get more cars off the road. Like think about. how efficient you could be with working. can be on the train, the East Coast has not high speed rail, but they do have a better rail network. And like, I know a lot of people who commute from New York to Boston, like one day a week for work and they're able to work on Amtrak or down to DC or Philadelphia. Like that's exactly how it's supposed to be designed. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, that's what they're doing down here. Yeah, yeah, the bright line down here. So it went through first originated from like Miami to Fort Lauderdale. And they expanded it to West Palm. And now they're expanding it over to Orlando, which I think they just did. And now they're going the next phase is like to go over to Tampa and Jacksonville. So they're trying to trying to do it on ⁓ I guess if you could think of the way the L is designed, they're kind of doing it the same way. You know what I'm saying? As far as what across the state? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I used to take Amtrak. Matt Conroy: Brightline? Yeah. Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Which is good, because then I can go to Orlando or Miami in two hours. I can go across state in three hours. You know what I'm saying? It's good, especially with the family. You don't have to worry about driving and things like that. So any time you can implement transportation where you don't have to drive and put all the miles on your car, that we're sitting in, we're sitting getting frustrated. And it takes a toll mentally, too. That's a whole other aspect of it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): A bit dope. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And not just that, like I lived in LA and I moved back home, but not all the way to Chicago. I lived in Palatine and eventually I worked. Yeah. And I worked at Leo. I ended up working at Leo Burnett downtown and I would take the Amtrak, but that hour or two it took on the train. I was working. I was billable. Matt Conroy: Yeah, and Mm-hmm. Part of my district. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Matt Conroy: Yeah? Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So it's not even trying to get away from road rage. Like I was making money taking the train. Matt Conroy: Yeah. The craziest part too is like, look, the United States, like the technology exists. China has built over 25,000 kilometers of high speed rail since 2008. The EU is planning to double theirs in, I believe it's by 2040 or 2050. And like, so the technology exists and the United States has the funding. Like studies show it would cost anywhere from between one and $1.5 trillion over like a 20 year period to get this built. All that we have to do is flip the funding. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: for the highway trust fund payout that we already have based on taxes, tolls, et cetera, that fund this program. So when you look at that, that if we could invest $50 billion a year per year for the next 20 years, we would still be spending $20 billion repairing our roads and repairing our bridges and everything that needs to. That is how you build it. we're not gonna, yeah, per mile it creates way more jobs. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Creating jobs. Matt Conroy: than any roads project does, like 20 to 30 % more jobs. It's better for the environment. It is the true freedom that cars were designed or originally sold upon. How freeing is it when you sit in bumper to bumper traffic five days a week, morning and evening, commuting to work? Okay, now how, yeah, well now how about if, you let's say like, you know, I'll give you a great example. If I wanted to go to Detroit for a Bears game, my two options are drive, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: or fly the night before, get a hotel, and then I have to hope that I can get a flight out Sunday evening or I'm spending another night at a hotel. If you had high speed rail, I could wake up, I could be downtown in Chicago for let's say an 8.30 a.m. train, you make it to Detroit for noon with the time difference, you you lose an hour on the way. An hour till kickoff, you walk the half mile or mile, whatever it is from there, like Union Station to Ford Field, you go to the game. and you're back on the train at, you know, we'll call it 4.30, you're in your house again by 6 p.m. Like that is basically equivalent to like a work day, but you went to a Bears game in another city and you could do the same thing, Minnesota, you could go, you know, Green Bay, like, or, you know, any other city. Yeah. But any, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Nobody wants to go to Green Bay. Cefore X. Plosives: You might have to have some bailout in jail ⁓ while you're there. Matt Conroy: St. Louis for Cubs Cardinals for a day game, stuff like that. That is how you want to do it. That is how you sell it. The biggest thing too is they'll be like, ⁓ they'll never be forward in the South. like, are you kidding me? Imagine going up to a college kid and be like, hey man, you can start getting hammered at eight in the morning on a train in Baton Rouge and you could take the train to Ole Miss, watch your team kick the shit out of Ole Miss, come back and party Saturday night in Baton Rouge at LSU. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure, yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Thank Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and pass out in your own bed. Matt Conroy: Exactly. Every college kid would be like, sign me up. What do I have to do? That's it. That's and like that's that's the thing. There are benefits for everyone. Cefore X. Plosives: Right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 100%. Right. Right. And again, you're getting cars off of the road. So if you're a true one of those guys that freedom, my car is a representation of my freedom. Like, let's get a lot of these cars so you can take your fancy Lamborghini. And instead of going 15 miles an hour, you can actually take that out somewhere and like open it up. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and not even that like to like think about so like LA to LA to here like to Chicago like that would be kind of unreasonable for a high speed rail trip like in terms of time wise because you can fly the 2000 miles in four and a half hours. But now airlines for kind of shorter trips like LA or sorry Chicago to New York. They got lower their price. So people who like flying people who live right near O'Hare or right near JFK and it's like it's just right there it's convenient. Well, now airlines have something else to compete with. They don't have a monopoly on this travel and those prices are gonna come down. know, the airlines exist in Europe. They make money over there. They have high speed rail. Like, what are we talking about? There is more than enough to go around in this country. Cefore X. Plosives: . Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm hmm. And let me tell you, and let me tell you, I've been to Europe, I've been to ⁓ Austria. Austria is the one that stands out what Germany does to ⁓ their rail system feels more escalated than ours does. Like it, everything about it is is more advanced than Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): than the stuff that we're doing. Matt Conroy: Yeah, so my experience with it, my uncle lived in Tokyo from like 2003 to 2010. And we got to go over basically every summer that we were in school and go spend a couple of weeks there and taking the Shinkansen or their bullet train, like from Tokyo up to Sendai or down to Kyoto and other cities, like it was incredible. And just the fact that this was 2006 I was doing this and I'm like, how doesn't this exist? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: And if we had started building it then, which is something I will never forgive Democrats for, like not even just mass transit, but housing, post the economic crash, they looked and said, okay, we have this tarp bailout money. We could invest it in people and give it to the people who are about to lose their home, their jobs. couldn't, we have a record low in ⁓ interest rates at the time. We could invest tons of money in housing and transportation. And what did they do? They continue to give tax breaks and bail out money to banks and institutions. And it's like, ⁓ that's exactly how we ended up in this exact same situation and how wealth inequality grew. So it's all connected. Like that's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. It's like transportation policy is directly connected to tax policy and is directly connected to money and politics. And the moment that we get money out of politics and make that change, it makes it so much easier to enact every single change that you want to happen to better your life. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Let's talk about, so I'm trying to, I've been, the more I talk to you guys, the more I'm trying to get to the answer of this question. It's hard to get people to trust anything political because we know that the money stops showing up exactly where it needs to be. Everyone has their hand out. How are we going to be able to, let's say, let's say things overseas quieted down and we found a new level of peace, but we're still going to have everyone with their hand out with the deep pockets and there everyone, everyone has their hand out. How are we going to make sure that we have $50 trillion dedicated towards high speed rail in and around the Chicago land area? How are we gonna make sure that the money gets to the trains instead of everyone who is along the way has their hand in them and has their hand out? Matt Conroy: Yeah, so 50 billion, by the way, not 50 trillion per year is what it would be. Look, we already build projects like this. We already do this, but we're doing roads, we're doing highway expansions, we're remodeling airports. We have the money, we have the labor unions that deserve to get paid because they're the ones who are building it. Absolutely. What government needs to do, in my opinion, is they need to make sure Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Matt Conroy: that they can simply make it easier to build, whether it be mass transit, whether it be housing, whatever it is, because the more restrictive that government makes it, the more frustrated people get and nothing ever gets done, which is how like in Chicago, like you get areas where you're like, why is there nothing around here? You know, for example, we were talking before we started recording about where the soccer stadium is going in Chicago. That's been a vacant lot in the South Loop. since at least since I've lived here in 2015. And that is an example of just making it really difficult to build and making it really tough. So what is the answer? I don't have it right now, but I think providing incentives to states, municipalities to expedite the process. Like for example, I know Pennsylvania passed a law or has a law on the books where it's basically like, you apply for a permit, within I think it's 45 days or 60 days and you don't hear back, it's approved. Like for residential housing and stuff like that. We really should be doing that, you know? And we need to really, really expedite these environmental reviews for certain things. Not for everything, but for certain things. know, like if we're talking about building housing in an already densely populated urban area, in my mind, I'm kind of like, what is the real purpose of this? Unless it's a huge high rise, like if it's, you know, ⁓ Or even like if we're building high speed rail, for example, directly next to existing highways, we already know the environmental impact. It's going to reduce the carbon emissions and reduce the impact on climate change by building it and by having it in place. And we can't say, all right, it's going to cause like there's going be a negative effect in the short term. Like that can't be a reason we don't do it. And then no one example that people give is like, it's going to increase congestion if you build more housing. And it's like, It may increase congestion, but it's also gonna bring in new business owners. It's gonna bring in new property tax revenue. You're gonna have more kids going to your local schools. You're gonna have more people paying into your income base. You're gonna have a community, like by building more, and I'm shifting to housing, but by building more housing units, you're gonna have the ability to create more of that community. By reducing lanes on roads, like so for example, like on Western Avenue in Ashland in Chicago, which are for two big, like, Basically there are six lane roads, like they shouldn't be, like there are three in three. By having bus rapid transit, we're able to move people up and down those corridors quicker, people who rely on mass transit. The same capacity for cars is still on the road, protected bike lanes. Like the thing is, adding a little bit of friction to driving in my example, like again, instead of two lanes, one, you can still go from A to B. We're not taking that away. You can still make all the right turns and all the left turns that you want. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: but we're just gonna add a little protective bike lane for people who are going short distances, for people who are taking mass transit from Avondale down to Little Italy to go get dinner or Little Village, something like that. That is exactly how you do it. And then when you think high-speed rail, okay, we're just doing the same thing, but we're doing it on national scale. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Yeah, not to mention if people are being paid the proper amount to survive, it would lower all of this traffic congestion if they were able to live at least somewhere close to where they work. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah. They the so like we've all heard the term like 15 minute cities, right? Like the Republicans always try to attack us for it. But it's like, no, it's not. We don't need to phrase it as 15 minute cities. That's the wrong phrase. The way that we need to approach is say we're going to have livable and walkable communities, which is too, which is unavailable for a lot of people. Mike, you're in Florida. How many walkable communities you got down there? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: You're But yeah, it's that's that's like how we have to phrase it because when we like in my mind, if if if you told me I had the opportunity that we could build this community where I can walk to work, I can walk or ride my bike, I can safely walk to the doctor's office, grocery store, everything I need on a regular basis. And if I wanted to go to another neighborhood, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He don't even have a mic. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: I would still have the ability to drive or I'd have the ability to take the train or bus or however I would get there. Yeah, sign me up. Yeah, whatever it is. Like that's the thing. It's like, we're not talking about completely eliminating cars and getting rid of people's like supposed freedoms or their desire to go drive, but by framing, creating these communities for people who don't want to drive. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure. Or Uber or yeah. Matt Conroy: we are gonna make it better for people who still continue in elected drive. That's the messaging that Democrats have struggled with. And that's the thing that they cannot sell and is why it seems like they're losing this battle. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. I don't know what it is about the Democrats. They have all the wonderful ideas, but boy do they get lost in messaging. Matt Conroy: Yeah, it's for me too, it's also messengers. Like the biggest thing that you look at, like it is, it really is like, look, we're sports fans. If you don't have the right, if the Bears, for example, were before Caleb Williams were like a broken franchise and they're still rebuilding, but they replaced their coach. So then maybe that's replacing the message and that's replacing the roster and updating there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt Conroy: And then they, you when you fall short of winning the Superbowl, which is your goal, you replace some of your players. Like, so that could be tweaking your message or the messengers, like however you want to look at it. So it's like, have to be continually refining and evolving. The democratic party is trying to go back to a pre Donald Trump way of doing things where you can be able to work with Republicans or negotiate with Republicans and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: I don't think they've realized that that ship has kind of sailed because the way that money has captured our politics, it's created hyper partisanship and it completely fuels this disconnect and friction between the two parties where no one wants to cave and Democrats always end up caving. they just have to realize, look, no matter what you do, no matter what your views are, you're gonna upset people. Stop trying to play it safe. Take some bold stances on position. Call out a genocide when you see it, which is what we've all seen. Stop trying, stop trying to straddle this political middle. Like, like fuck your, your, your corporate donors, fuck your billionaire donors. We're going to tax you because guess what? If Elon Musk tomorrow woke up and we had new taxes, like Bernie Sanders today put forward a 5 % wealth tax that would raise roughly $4 trillion and you know, help do, help address healthcare, schools, education. roads, infrastructure, et cetera, a lot of different things. You'd still be worth 350 billion or 400 billion or whatever the number is. I'm for a 25 % wealth tax on people worth over 100 billion. Someone's like, that's stealing. I don't give a shit what you think it is you boot licker. I'm like, we're talking about taxing roughly like a thousand people. That's what we're talking about. And someone's like, oh, the economy would collapse. I'm like, if you raise taxes on 1000 people and the economy collapses, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): too. you Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that can afford it. Matt Conroy: You don't have an economy, you have a manipulated market that benefits only the rich and only the wealthy. And the fact that you don't see that is the problem. And this goes to, again, Democrats being too scared or not having the right people to message. I do think they have some of the right people. They have AOC, they have Bernie, they have Ro Khanna, people who tend to speak and align more with populist views. And what does the party do? They don't promote them. They don't put them out there. They don't put them in leadership positions. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: And, you know, I met yesterday or I met during the campaign with someone from the Democratic Party in one of the townships in our neighborhood or in our district. And I was talking to them and they brought up money and money in politics. And I was like, yeah, well, like I'm not taking any corporate PAC money because that's the direction the party needs to go. And she's like, you're really bringing a knife to a gunfight, which I understand. Like, you know, you're coming in at a disadvantage. But Democrats have been bringing a gun to a gunfight and have been losing and getting shot in the face every single time because they don't have the right messengers, because they don't have the right messengers and they don't have the right message and they're afraid to take a stand. Those three things make it so tough. And the last thing I'll say on this ⁓ is like, look, like we're all like, you, and Mike are obviously clearly like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): if not shooting themselves in the face. Matt Conroy: inform voters like an inform people that we pay attention to politics and we pay attention to what's going on and we understand what to look for. A lot of the American public isn't and it doesn't make them bad people. It's just because they have their own lives. They have kids, they have a job, their mom is sick, you know, they lost their job, they lost their healthcare, like they have other things going on, like completely understand people who are not informed and not involved and engaged with politics. So if you're someone like that and it comes to election time and you look at the two parties, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You're correct. Yeah. Matt Conroy: Both of them are taking money from corporate PACs, lobbyists, special interests. Both of them are funding a genocide. And to give Republicans credit where credit's due, their messaging is so much better and so much catchier to the uninformed voter than Democrats. So when you factor in those three things, no wonder Democrats don't win any elections. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yep. Yep. And it's sad because it seems like that's the way that we should be moving. So when I talk about the economy to people and they say, ⁓ the trickle down and all this stuff. Okay. I say, listen, in a gasoline engine for a gasoline engine to run, you need what? Cefore X. Plosives: you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): gasoline. In a consumer based economy, why would you ever regulate how many consumers we have? Why would you ever cap that? The more that people consume, the better the economy. Rich people, the collection of rich people that are consuming will always be less. than everybody else who doesn't have anything. Matt Conroy: Oh yeah, yeah. The people who hoard wealth, it's so incredibly bad for not just the country, but for the economic status of the world. Because look, we live in a global economy. No matter how much isolationists want to completely separate us, we're not. Like this started like decades ago. Yeah, Richard Nixon, fucking on, we're a tricky dick. Look, we first, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Always. Right. In the 70s. Yeah. Yeah Matt Conroy: We stopped manufacturing in the United States and we shifted to Mexico. And then we found out it was... Yep. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And let's pause right there because I think that's something that people need to understand. This was a manufactured move. was a political, politicians got together and said, okay, look. We're going to be the brains of the planet. We're going to invent everything or we're going to do all the things. And we are supposed to go to China, go to India to have cheap labor doing all of this. They, meaning the politicians, decided to not educate the people of the United States to be those thinking leaders to be able to invent things. That's where the dilemma begins, was this deindustrialization of America, but then they never invested in education. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah. And look, it also was, I'm not necessarily saying that it was a bad thing to move manufacturing because it allows us to buy goods for cheaper. Like, look, if we manufactured iPhones in the United States, we'd be paying $10,000 for an iPhone. you know, like that's untenable. ⁓ Where it was missed was it's like, okay, how are we gonna replace these jobs? So when we... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Right, right. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: abandoned all of these small towns and rural towns in the South and the Rust Belt and middle America. The cities have had their flows, but they're gonna continue to thrive because New York's not based on manufacturing. LA's not based on manufacturing. Chicago, these are towns that have other, yeah, that are already integrated in the global economy. It's these small towns that have really continuously been screwed over. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right, San Francisco. Matt Conroy: And again, this comes to the Republican talking points where their media ecosystem is better. So those uninformed, uninvolved voters who don't understand that the Republican officials that represent their district ship the jobs off seas, they continue to vote for them because they have the messaging and they have the infrastructure to get through. Whereas that's something that the Democratic party doesn't have. ⁓ So yeah, and then it's just, you know, we have to figure out a way that we can Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Matt Conroy: you know, like they keep saying AI is the future. It's like, is it or is it just the future for a couple of really rich people that are, you know, set up to benefit from the inputs that we gave because like AI was created off of all of our inputs, you know, like all of our Google searches. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And for the record, it was also developed with your tax money. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah, and then they're gonna wanna bail out when it fails. This is 2008 all over again with a different sector. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. So the American. And that's the thing, right? Instead of investing in our populace and making them more educated and making them be able to figure this stuff out a little bit faster, a little bit better, we keep investing in these get rich quick schemes. The government continues to scratch off lottery tickets on your dime. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah, there's no such thing as a get rich quick scheme because if there was everyone would do it and everyone would be rich. That's the thing. And plus in a scheme, there's a winner and there's a loser. And who's losing? The American people. And who's winning? A handful of people that are already extremely wealthy hoarding all the wealth. Look, the easiest way that you can do this is making invest like that you can change the narrative as a party is to prove that you're gonna make investments in people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Everyone would do it. Yeah. Matt Conroy: earn their trust back. And you can do this without spending massive amounts of capital. you know, I we're $38 trillion in debt, nearly $40 trillion in debt. So how do you do it? Okay. How about pass a legitimate ban on congressional stock trading? Show the American people that you're going to be like, Hey, we're going to work for you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. something that everyone agrees with. Matt Conroy: Exactly. And something that has more than a $200 fine for someone who does it. Immediate expulsion from their seats. If they trade, let's say $5 million of stocks, their fine is $10 million. Like have some fucking teeth and show that you are actually a nation of laws, not just a nation of laws, except on the wealthy and the elite. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Not even that is eloquent how you said it. We are crooks. With the country is being run by crooks and all the people that are, they just want to get up and go to work and go home and have a nice dinner and all that stuff. They're stealing your money. Crooks are stealing your money. Matt Conroy: We want, look, we just want, I want a good life and everyone wants a good life. And for every person, like I think that looks different. Like for example, like Mike, we were talking earlier, like you have kids, like you want your kids to be successful. You want them to have, you want them to have a better life than you had, like more opportunities, right? Like I feel like that's for most parents, you know? Yeah, and like for me, like my thing is I just want healthcare that isn't going to force me to go bankrupt, you know? One day if my wife and I choose to have kids, I want them to have access to a good education. ⁓ I realize not every kid around the country has that. also maybe their parents are gonna really struggle to afford to feed them. So I wanna make sure that we're providing school meals to these kids or universal meals. Like we're investing in people. There is a real way that we can do it. And my wife and I were sitting on the couch last night, we were talking and it's like, because look, I'm running in a race against, I'm sure we'll get to in a couple of minutes at some point, but like I'm running against a challenger. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure. Matt Conroy: or sorry, I'm challenging an incumbent. And we did a forum where he was sitting, you know, he's trying to go out and say, he's doing a good job. And it's like, none of you are doing a good job. There's 28 million people without health insurance. There's 38 million people living below the poverty line. 800,000 without health that are homeless. 35,000 of whom are troops. And I can go down and down and down the list. And it's like, none of you are doing a good job. You may think you're doing a good job, but that is why we're so mad. Look, I'm a millennial. So when I graduated college, it was right post that 2008 crash. And there were not the economic and job opportunities that were promised to us when we went into college. And now younger generations are seeing the same thing. And we're seeing the same cycle of a government and elected officials, most of whom who have been there since 2008, are still telling us the same things, that they're fighting for us while they continue to give tax breaks to corporations. billionaires and they refuse to pass working-class, popular, bipartisan popular policies that will make the lives of everyone expensive. Look, if we raise taxes on billionaires to the point that they didn't exist tomorrow and everyone was worth $999 million, the lives for the other 350 million Americans would increase drastically, drastically. Everyone's life would be so much better. There'd be such... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exponentially. Yeah, for real. Matt Conroy: It would just be like all the stress that people feel with bills and stuff like that when you're like, ⁓ I'm not going to go broke for my health care. Yeah, sure. You still might get sick. You unfortunately might get cancer. We're not saying you're never going to get illness, but imagine how that's treatable and you have access to the health care that these billionaires have access to. That's what we're talking about here, providing an equitable future for all people, regardless of income, race, background, sex, gender. It doesn't matter. Start working for the fucking people who put you in office. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. right. That's why people don't trust government. Because it's time and time again, we think we're gonna vote for this person and this person just ends up. ends up being financed by someone who is telling them how to vote. So then why the hell did we give you the job if someone else is telling you what to do? Matt Conroy: Yeah, they all are. Look at my opponent, Mike Quigley. Look, he's a Democrat. I'm a Democrat. People think because he's been in office since 2009 and a Democrat, like he's a good guy. It's like he's funded by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, the entire defense contractor and war machine. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And remember earlier and remember earlier, we just got done saying that that these companies give money to both sides. Matt Conroy: Yeah, ⁓ yeah, January 6 insurrectionist people who voted to overthrow the election like he's taking money from both of them. You ever wonder why he continually votes to increase the budget for the Department of Defense? We're going to war with Iran, guess where that funding came from? Every like all the Democrats who voted for it. And that's and that is exactly why like, again, it comes back to money and politics and just how it's completely corrupted our system. Anybody who thinks look, I'm not saying we shouldn't have a military. There are people there are country people around this Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. We need to have a military. Period. Matt Conroy: There are people around this, yeah, but we spend more than the next 10 countries combined, seven of whom are allies, which is, which is absurd. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And the other six are us again and again. Matt Conroy: Yeah, China, China has a country that has what roughly four to five times our population, I think it is, and they spend half of what we spend on the military, like, and we say they're this Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And they're making moves and they're making moves to like buying up these smaller countries. They don't need a bullet. They don't need bullets. They don't need missiles. Matt Conroy: Yeah, so they can have bases around the world. Yeah. China hasn't dropped a bomb or attacked a country since I think 1979. And look, China has severe human rights issues and violations. have potentially like a genocide of the Evers that they were doing and they have concentration camps and do not get me wrong, like we need to call it out where we call it out. But China has made massive investments in their population. They've built a ton of housing. They have built. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. 100%. Matt Conroy: invested a ton in infrastructure, they've educated their people, they provide healthcare to their people. Look, when some regardless of what country it is, when they when someone does something right, even a broken clock is right twice a day, we have to take those things in and say, okay, let's make those investments, or let's do those things. But let's, let's improve upon it, or let's let's, we see what they're doing with civil rights, let's never be that, you know, and I think that's how we have to approach it moving forward. And that's exactly how Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: You know, that's the only way forward. Otherwise, we're just going to continue down, you know, kind of this path that most people feel like America's declining. And I can't really argue against that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. We can't. We can't. Just the simple fact that we, our education is as atrocious as it is. That's just proof. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah. And like, no, it's I mean, there's no we don't educate people. The biggest example, the easiest example I give like what education how fucked up it is. We'll give 18 year olds loans for 100, 200, $300,000 to go to college, but we won't educate them on what an interest rate is or what APR or how to balance how to taxes. Yeah, like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You don't have to go further than that. How to do taxes? ⁓ huh. Matt Conroy: Again, like I think when we look at making investments, I talked about childcare and school meals and education, but it's like, yeah, we also need to make sure that we're investing in civics. We're educating people on voting and getting involved in their communities. Like, look, if you're someone who doesn't vote, just vote. Like you have to do more. If you want a better future, you can't just say they're all the same. are, primaries are the time that you make change. And I tell people this all the time. If you are satisfied, satisfied with the status quo, vote for the incumbent. If you think we are going in the right direction, vote for the incumbent, Republican or Democrat, whatever ⁓ you are, vote for it. But if you are not, you have to vote for the challenger because chances are your elected official is taking money from the corporations that are screwing you over. Banks, Wall Street, airlines who pollute our skies and jack up their prices, defense contractors, AIPAC funding and helping to... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: provide funding for a genocide. Everything that you hate, you have to take the time and do a little bit of research on the FEC website, find out who they're taking money from. And I would say just the moment you see that donation check, you can ignore anything that they've ever said, in my opinion. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And that was that little red box thing that just came out like some you remember Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah, that basically signals that someone is open to super PAC spending. Like kind of dark money influence. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So you go to their website, you go to their website and at the bottom of their page there's a little red box that says open for business. Open, my coffers are open for you to tell me how to do my job. Matt Conroy: Yeah, pretty much. mean, it's like. Yeah, so for people who don't know, when you run for office, you have to set up a PAC. You have to set up what's called a political action committee. It's how you take money. ⁓ But it's why you'll see on all my advertisements and my website at the bottom, it says, paid for by Matt Connery for Congress. My campaign fund's directly paying for it. Donations from individuals, and that's all I'm taking money from. I'm not taking money from corporate PACs, lobbyists, special interests, anything like that. Just individuals. If you've done it to the campaign, you are paying for helping to fund our operation, whether it be our website, ⁓ if we're doing mailers, if we're doing ads on social media, if we're doing, and then any sort of like flyers, door hangers, stuff like that. Anytime you see anything other than paid for, Matt Connor for Congress or another candidate in another race, like Kevin Ryan running the US Senate. Like if his says Kevin Ryan for US Senate, that's him. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's his pack. Matt Conroy: anything other than the person's name for Congress or for Senate, it's it you got to be careful. That's where it's it's influence money getting in. And the biggest example that you can see is like leading up to primary like our primaries in two weeks on March 17 here in Illinois. We're getting bombarded with mail. You know, there's my local state reps. So the Illinois state rep seat is opening. It's a it's a four way race like we're getting mailers left and right. And some of them will say paid for by Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Matt Conroy: X for Illinois or X for state rep. And other ones will say paid for by the freedom fund or paid for by whatever. right then that's when you know, you're like, okay, they're taking some dark shady money that I need to look into. ⁓ different websites like Illinois has their own website you can look at for the state. If you're running in a federal race, you go to the FEC website, but that's what we have to do. We also have to look at their voting record. And that's the other thing too. So like, again, coming back to my race, I'm running against Mike Quigley, been in office since 2009. He's a Democrat. He said he's pro-choice. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Matt Conroy: Well, in December, he voted for a bill that restricted funding and access to abortion and reproductive rights. So how pro-choice are you? Only when it doesn't take away funding for Ukraine or funding for increasing the defense budget? That's the thing. that is exactly where, and again, this comes into the two things that voters have to take the time to do. Look at their voting record. Look at their money. Look who's funding their political existence. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, not even in that order. Take a look at who's funding them and then you'll be able to assume what the hell they're voting towards. And then just go take a look at the voting record so you can see. Matt Conroy: Yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And if your life isn't changing, you need to change. You need to make the change. Matt Conroy: Exactly. Look, like, like, I was 280 pounds at one point in my life, like I knew I wanted to lose weight, like I had to go to the thank you, I'm down like 65 pounds. So like, this is also like, you know, almost eight years ago at this point, but either way, like, I realized in order for me to do something different or to lose weight, I had to do something different. So look, I can't like we all hate the King Jeffries. He sucks. Like he's he's terrible. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You look great. Yeah. Shout out Vance Bostic. Vance Bostic is gonna take that seat. Matt Conroy: Yeah, NYA baby. ⁓ But like we can't, ⁓ we can't vote for him. You know, like we sure like we can make calls and help and try and get him elected. it's up to the people that district if they are tired of the Democratic Party, they have to vote out their representative. And when you look and and how Charlemagne the God called him a pack secure, great nickname, great nickname. ⁓ Like that's, that's what I mean. Like you have to look at who's funding your elected officials. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. That's hilarious. Matt Conroy: how they're voting or not even just how they're vote. And then like in Hakeem Jeffries issue too, like he's supposed to be the leader of Democrats in the house. Like what positions are they taking? What are they not taking? Like basically everything that's wrong with the Democrats in the house, you can pin on leadership. So in that case, like that's what I mean. It's like you, as a voter, you have to show up, you have to vote for the challenger if you want things to change. It's that simple. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And think of it like this, if you voted for the grassroots people, it ends up being cheaper. Matt Conroy: It does. well, here's the other example I give somebody came up to me and said, when we were out, we were having a conversation. said, well, look like, you know, Mike Quigley has been around forever. Like, so, you know, his experience matters. And, you know, he knows some people in the party. like, My rebuttal to you is look, he's also running for mayor of Chicago, which I haven't brought up yet. ⁓ so he's running two races at once. How much does his experience or sway in the Democratic Party matter ⁓ he's either campaigning for another office? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You Yeah. Matt Conroy: or if he wins and he's no longer in the House of Representatives. That's number one. Number two, I always ask people, is how much of a player in the party was AOC prior to her getting elected? That's the thing is if you, whether it's me or Dylan Blaha in the 12th 13th district in the state or in Illinois, or people like you said, Vance Bostic and NY8, if you're someone who comes in with grassroots funding, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: And regardless of whether you have $15,000 or $150,000, if you beat an incumbent who's corporately backed, A-packed on, in my opinion, you are immediately a rock star in the party. You are a lightning bolt. You are ⁓ not just a shot across the bow, but just you are a direct hit on the ship. You know what I mean? That's exactly how I phrase it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. I have the perfect example. ⁓ Yeah. Matt Conroy: You now have the ability, that person who represents your district, to completely change everything. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. The really good example of that is here ⁓ in California for I live in California for our incumbent is named ⁓ I want to say it and Tom Thompson. Thank you. Is it Mike Thompson? My Mike Thompson something like that. ⁓ And then he there's a Matt Conroy: Thompson. I forget his first name, but I remember it might be. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): grassroots candidate that started making a lot of noise. Well, Mike Thompson said that he, yeah. Matt Conroy: Eric Jones is the challenger. I was just finding that out, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, Mike Thompson said that he raised like 1.6 million dollars. And then Eric Jones came out and said he raised 1.5 million dollars, million dollars. And now it's official that people are paying attention to what Eric Jones has to say. So it's wild. And from what I understand, you correct me if I'm wrong. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): But when you go to run for office and then you finally start meeting the democratic establishment, the first question is how much money have you raised? Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah, always. I have not been asked by a single voter or a single person who is not involved in politics how much money we raised. And that right there to me is like, if you are judging a candidate based on how much money they raise, then you're part of the problem. Because if you meet with someone and you're like, he or she has a great message. Their attitude is impeccable. They're so personable, they're so friendly. I close my eyes and I can see them representing this district. If they suck at fundraising or not good at it like I am, that's where you come in. You're in the party. You have the access to the donors who support the Democratic Party. You have access to, quite frankly, people with more disposable income than I do. So that is where, as a party, you have to stop completely shutting off candidates. who don't have money, you have to look at the message they have, what they're trying to accomplish, and will it move the party in the right direction that it needs to go? So like in my mind, I don't think we should allow corporations to have PACs or have the ability to contribute at all. In my opinion, if you can vote, you can donate. That's how it is. $3,500 per person across the board. How do we supplement some of this income? or some of this funding that will be needed. Well, that's where we go to publicly financed elections. We go to rank choice voting. We really need to make it cheaper. I also like, I know there are certain countries around the world that limit when you can see election ads or political advertisements. really like that. Like I think that we need to get to that where, you know, like we're just bombarded every single day now. my wife and I went to get pizza the other night. We were sitting in the bar eating. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Me too. Matt Conroy: and we look up and we were watching college basketball and we look up there and every single commercial, Raja, Juliana Stratton, two US Senate candidates, ⁓ Kat Abugazale, ⁓ who's her opponent, Laura Fine, Daniel Biss, and the crazy thing is you have to look at who is paying for them. That goes to the red box thing you were talking about earlier, looking at the bottom of who's actually putting their name on it versus who's dark money. And that's just a big, big, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: big problem. it's, it's something that has to be done because if we don't change and it's how you get like candidates like Zoram Umdani in New York like to win and it's like, look, say what you want about his policies. Like he wants to make life cheaper for people by opening up five city owned grocery stores in neighborhoods that are struggling and don't have the ability they called, you know, fruit deserts, they're called or vegetable deserts. Like, makes sense. Absolutely. Let's try it. If it doesn't work, we have to figure out something else, but let's try it. He wants to make buses free. Okay. I not the biggest fan. think mass transit should cost money if we want to make it like reduced based on income or fares based on tied to your income. I think that's more equitable and then still use that money to maybe expand routes and offer more coverage. But Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Right, right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: I'm willing to try it, okay? Universal childcare, all four. you know, like these are the things like freezing the rent and lowering the cost of housing. Like these are things that he realizes the mayor can do and he can implement right away to make people's lives better and just improve it immediately. Paying shovelers, what was it? 25 or 30 bucks an hour during the recent blizzard to help clear the streets. Incredible. That's what, like that's exactly what government's supposed to do, you know? And he, and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Matt Conroy: the own, I mean, besides running an incredible campaign, but the real tool that he used to his advantage was the publicly financed elections because he was not taking massive donation checks like ⁓ Andrew Cuomo was, who was funded exclusively by rich people, billionaires, corporations, and the establishment that we all hate, you know? And it's like people want a change. And if the Democratic Party couldn't see that based on that one election at the very definition of establishment. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: and then the definition of ⁓ forward-facing like future were against each other and he kicked the shit out of twice. It's like, come on, man. Like, what are we doing here? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I always thought that that's what we're supposed to do as citizens of the United States is like, how can we leverage all of this knowledge to make life better? How can we leverage all of this money to make life better? Right. And even going to, you know, this child care, ⁓ not situation, the child care argument issue. Imagine being a working class family that has to pay whatever exorbitant amount just for babysitters. Matt Conroy: issue. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and both of you are working. Let's say childcare was around $2,000 a month. But let's say, let's say that, let's say that, yeah, and you can correct the numbers later, but let's say it's $2,000 a month for a small family, $2,000 a month would cover so much, whether it's car insurance, whether it's groceries, whether it's something. So now you have $2,000. What if, what if Matt Conroy: Pro kid. Don't forget that fact. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They decided that they wanted to, I don't know, we're from Chicago, we eat. What if they decided that they wanted to lean in and start their own restaurant? So now they're creating jobs for people in the community, just off of available money that they would have available because we're not spending $100 million on a fucking plane that we, that three of them just got done shot, just got done getting shot down. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And like the biggest example that I give is look, if you make lives easier for people who are struggling and financially strapped, number one, just the stress, like, and stress could kill them. Like that's the thing too, is we're making, yeah, you know, like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 100%. Stress creates so much illness. And then you mix that with the brake dust and the exhaust and the tire dust that we were just talking about. Matt Conroy: Yeah, and like my mom always Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. And look, you know, my mom always said like money doesn't solve every issue. And she's right, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier. If you offer let's say childcare, and instead of a family paying $3,000 a month for childcare, we charge a it obviously has to be paid based on taxes, like it has to be funded from a progressive tax. And instead of paying 3000 a month, they're paying $1,000 a month. Well, that extra $2,000, it's not just gonna go to like sit in their bank account, they're going to like put that into the economy. So that maybe they take that $2,000 and maybe they go on a vacation. Maybe they go to a national park and they stay. Exactly. And they spend $2,000, you know, they spend $500 on airline tickets and they spend, you know, a couple hundred bucks on a small motel and they spend money at. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They're just doing consumer things. Matt Conroy: you know, businesses in, you know, around these natural parks, little diners, coffee shops, like souvenirs like that is ⁓ a economic input that billionaires and people hoarding wealth could never create. And that's why when people argue for not raising taxes on them, it's absolutely crazy. Look, the job of government is to make people's lives a little bit better to have a functioning society. And when we have a society, where there are 28 million people or 26 million people without health insurance, 500,000 going broke every year because of medical debt, 38 million people living below the poverty line. Then government is broken and it's not doing its job. I think everyone would agree there. So how do we do it? Well, let's start by taking care of our most vulnerable people, immigrants, people who are struggling to pay their bills, providing to people who can't afford life-saving medication, protecting the communities and people within those communities. who need it the most. And a rising tide lifts all boats. So let's try something different than we've been doing because what we've been doing clearly isn't working. And I think everyone would agree, right? You agree with that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right, right. You show me one moment in time in the entire history of the world where we haven't invested in a certain community where like proper money, not bullshit, like, for the inner city schools in Chicago, we're gonna paint the walls, but then we're not gonna invest in teachers, right? Show me, give me one example where we have invested in a certain population of people and it hasn't come out in a better way. Or even here in America, you show me where people were able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps by themselves. Matt Conroy: Yeah? ⁓ yeah! Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): by themselves. It doesn't happen. You need money. We said this earlier, you need money to make all of this stuff attainable or accessible or whatever. And the only thing that you're doing is improving the entire community of the United States of America. You're just growing that community and everyone is better. And exactly what you said, rising tides lifts all boats. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah, and it's that that's really how we have to look at it is that ⁓ we have to invest in everyone because that again is the job of government and that is what we're supposed to do. And that's what the people elected you to do. They didn't elect you to give tax breaks to corporations and to, you know, give tax write-offs to billionaires and CEOs who make $50 million a year to write off their private jets. No, they elected you so you could fund their schools. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah! Matt Conroy: so you could fix our transportation, so you could build housing, so you could help improve the lives of everyone. And like you said, look, we live in a. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right, right, right. I'm hoping that we invest enough money in our education system so when I go and get into an argument with people that believe in this MAGA bullshit that at least I'm not arguing with an idiot. Matt Conroy: Yeah, like, like, and we said earlier, look, if you are someone who, if you Republicans, if you have a different economic theory or ways that like, you think we should be approaching investing in schools or investing in transportation or whatever it is, like, you know, again, we're not going to always agree 100%. But it's like, okay, have we done it your way for the past 30 years, where we continually cut funding? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Infrastructure, yeah. Matt Conroy: and lower taxes for billionaires and corporations. Okay, how was it 30 years ago? What was our housing? Look, we had a housing shortage. Don't get me wrong, we had a housing shortage. Was it worse back then or was it better? Better. You know, and that's the thing. It's like, okay, so we have to like that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. We can even take a look at media. In the 70s, our programming was accidentally teaching us things. And now it's just silly TikTok videos. Matt Conroy: There's also just so much of it too. Like that's part of it. Like it's just, we have these dopamine hits like, you know, all the time and it's just like, it's right in our pocket and you know, it's whenever it's just, whenever things like even like I'm sure you find yourself, you'll be sitting watching TV, you just look over your phone, you know, like you get those, you know, you get those ghost buzzes or ghost notifications and it's just like, is my brain playing tricks on me? I'm lucky enough being, I'm 37. So like I said, I'm a millennial. I remember Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah Matt Conroy: The iPhone kinda only really came out, I think I was in college or just entering college and my mom was like, you don't need a smartphone. I had a flip phone pretty much until my senior year of college and then my cousin was getting rid of his Blackberry so I had, I didn't have a smartphone until I graduated college. And I am so fortunate that I grew up that way because I think it really taught me the value of being able to, just being able to entertain yourself. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: by not having your phone and these constant dopamine hits is something that we need to get back to. Like Australia just passed a law where they're banning social media. I think it's for kids under the age of 16. We absolutely need to do that. And I would even go 18. In my opinion, for someone under the age of 18, there is no inherent value for this. Like we should almost have like kid smarts, approved smartphones where, look, parents want to, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: give their kids freedom, they want to teach them, you know, kind of responsibility, but they want to keep track of them or they want to know where they are like having a phone for a kid who let's just say that they can call, they can text, they can FaceTime if they want. They can use Google, they can use Google Maps to figure out where they're going. And they can have ⁓ Uber or Lyft on it. And I'm kind of like, and maybe an Apple wallet so they could pay for stuff, but it's like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. and the parents can track them. Matt Conroy: You know, if you have it like that, then they're not always constantly checking it and finding, you know, finding, you know, dopamine hits that are not doing anything to them other than conditioning their brain to do that. So and kind of getting back to social media with it too, Democrats need to. And one of the things that I would propose that we do is we have to go after big tech for the harm that they've done on our society. Look, Mark Zuckerberg went before Congress and committed perjury and lied to Congress. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): another crook. stole the Facebook idea. He's another crook. Matt Conroy: Another crook. It's not even him stealing the idea. Like I'm not even like, whatever, man. That's way beyond. Plus also the Winklevoss twins are crooks too nowadays with Bitcoin. like crooks are going to crook. Either way, he went before Congress and he testified that Facebook had no idea about the harms to teenagers who were getting bullied online, some of whom were inflicting self harm and even committing suicide. Well, internal reports have completely debunked that and they knew about it. And he sat there and he lied. Again, that is the thing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Yeah, crooks are gonna crook. Matt Conroy: He 100 % so should every single Facebook executive face legitimate charges, massive fines and penalties for that. It's almost to the point where it's like, if you were worth, let's say, five billion back then and you're worth 500 now, we are taking every single penny from you. Going back there and then we're still going to tax you. It's like, you built a business, but you lied and you deceived the government and you also need to go to jail for what you've done. And that's... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: I don't think that's reasonable. Like I think when you sell it as we're going to actually protect kids, we're going to take care of kids and we're going to make sure that they're not bullied online, that they're not abused and harassed. And, you know, we're actually going to lock up the pedophiles that are involved with the Epstein ring, you know, starting with our president. Like that's really where, you know, we have to go as a party and it's like, Hey man, you may not think it, but there are a lot of voters who see that the president is in the Epstein files. and all these rich and powerful people are in the Epstein files publicly, we know it, and not a single person has been arrested. And they're just like, screw it. It's like you want, you know, yes, you do have to win some of the swing voters, but you have to get voters who don't show up to show up for you. And by protecting kids, by going after these companies who, you know, Facebook, again, it will use them as an example. Data centers, like they're destroying small towns all across the country, driving up energy costs. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: killing their water supply. You you see these videos on more perfect union like this is this is easy, easy political wins and policies that need to be passed and the party refuses to do. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Why did you get into politics? Matt Conroy: I got into this race because I'm just, I am someone who, like, I've always been engaged and involved and someone who's considered himself to be a Democrat. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What did you want to be when you grew up, when you were a Matt Conroy: pro athlete, always. I mean, let's be honest, you know, always. Yeah. Oh, oh, I wanted to be Ken Griffey Jr. He was the coolest motherfucker in sports, man. He, the way he, the way he would like fly like a fucking gazelle across the outfield, Rob home runs, the smoothest swing. Oh my God. want, I wear 24 is my number because of him. And every single time it's like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Attaboy! Me too, son! ⁓ He's still, he's still the boss. Hahaha Yeah. Matt Conroy: And if I can't get 24, I get three, because that's what he wore on the Cincinnati Reds when he changed teams. ⁓ anyway, yeah, so professional athlete was my thing. I'm like, yeah, absolutely. I got into running for office because I saw, it took me 36 years to realize that I can't wait for other people to enact the change that I want to see. You have to make the change happen yourself. And my elected official, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Matt Conroy: has been in office since 2009. He takes money from all the corporations that prevent change from happening. He takes money from defense contractors that profit off of endless wars. takes money from a foreign lobby, AIPAC, that helps push and enable a genocide. And I am just ⁓ appalled that he is my representative. And that is the type of person who way too often the representative for the Democratic Party. There are more people Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: who favor his policies in the party, like in elected office, then do not. And whereas with the voters, more of the voters absolutely align with the issues that we have and the fact that we're not taking any corporate or PAC money. So when I see that and it just, is like we were saying earlier, they're not doing a good job. No matter what they tell themselves, they are not doing a good job. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Black and brown people have a saying, the Republican Party and the Democrat Party are wings on the same bird. Matt Conroy: Damn right. Yeah, they are. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Because it doesn't matter if they're wearing blue, if they're wearing red, if they're wearing a red cap, it doesn't matter. Your life is still going to be surrounded with struggle. So if you want black and brown folks to come out and to vote, you need to come out with a plan that says, this is how we're going to get you to tap back into the government. My opinion. Matt Conroy: Correct. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): If we, if we invest heavily into education to show these communities, look, we're going to start doing our thing. We're going to start educating your kids and we're going to start to figure out how, ⁓ managing your kids can be more affordable, whether it's healthcare or, ⁓ yeah, healthcare, childcare, school, all the things. And then you get into what you were talking about with what mom, Donnie's trying to do these food deserts and stuff. Matt Conroy: ⁓ huh. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): When you start building things like that into the communities that people like Trump and all of these quote unquote successful people, the self-made millionaires that got all the millions from their parents, those guys, when they tell you that investing in these communities is a waste of time, do the opposite of that and I bet you you're gonna win. Matt Conroy: Donald Trump's father make all his money. Housing projects, housing projects. Like that's it. Well, yeah. And it's just like, okay, it's yeah. Well, you're 100 % right. Like I agree with everything you just said. it also like, yes, making investments in your kids, making investments in education, afterschool programs, community policing to help reduce gun violence. I'm thinking Chicago. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): being a crook. Yeah, yeah, not renting to blacks and Puerto Ricans. Matt Conroy: more locally just because they traffic guns across the state lines because Indiana is basically is in our backyard and they don't do a fucking thing about guns in that state. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. And what's hilarious is there's so many laws in Chicago against all these guns, they even have spray paint outlawed and they still get spray paint. You think they're not going to have guns? Matt Conroy: Yeah, ⁓ yeah, it's crazy. And it's like, I think another thing too, you have to invest in healthcare, you have to invest in additional health clinics and health facilities, you know, in these neighborhoods, because you shouldn't force people who need urgent medical care, or, you know, even if they're going for a routine checkup to have to take a bus an hour and a half, like they should be able to walk or at least in their in neighborhood. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 100 % And imagine being sick. Imagine being sick and you're in a bus for an hour and a half. Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah, yeah, and it's... ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You're trying to contain, you're trying to contain all this stuff that's happening. Matt Conroy: Yeah, just making investments in people's lives. And again, not every single thing that we list off is gonna benefit every person in the community. But when you hit a couple key areas, three of five, like you brought up childcare, I don't have kids, but I still want my friends and family and people in my neighborhood and people all around the country to have access to it. So it's not gonna benefit me, it's gonna make their lives better. Sure, I'm happy to help pay a little more taxes for it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. But this is how it's gonna benefit you. Your neighbors aren't gonna be stressed. They're not gonna be broke because someone got sick. If you are taken care of, this is a guarantee. If you are hearing my voice, please listen. Matt Conroy: Yeah! Yeah! Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): If you feel good, you're going to want to go to work. If you're able to go to work, you're going to make money. If you make money, you're going to come home and buy things for your people. It's not that hard. Trickle down sucks. You can take a notification. You can go to a bulls game. You can do a bears game. You can do all the wonderful things. Matt Conroy: Take your family on a vacation. Take your family on a vacation you always wanted to do. you know. Don't go to a bulls game. Don't go to a bulls game. Don't give Jerry Reinsdorf your money. He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hahaha They do kind of have a high school team right now. Matt Conroy: Yeah, they're a joke, but ⁓ no, I understand what you're saying. And that's the thing. It's like, again, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier by, you know, if you offer people healthcare, additional healthcare that their costs went down or access to groceries, so their costs went down or more housing. So their costs went down, whatever that additional money that they are going to have, they're now either going to put it back into their community or they're going to be able to actually save for retirement and put it into the community then as opposed to billionaires who have more than enough for 38 million lifetimes and just sit on it and sit on it. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And you don't ever get invited to their parties. Everybody, everybody who's struggling right now has never gotten an invitation to Mar-a-Lago. They don't care about you. They don't care. You know what? You know what? Just because rich people are rich doesn't mean that they don't have kids. They're worried about their kids. Just because people have money doesn't mean that they don't have Matt Conroy: Yeah, ⁓ yeah, no, it's an- If you're not on the guest list, you're on the menu. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): other responsibilities that they need to deal with. So they have normal people, they have human responsibilities, as do you. They have less friction than you do, but they're not worried about you because they have the same... daily checklist that they need to do. Wake up, check. Get ready for work, check. Go to work, check. Make sure my kids are at school, check. All that stuff, the only difference is they have less friction than you. So imagine if you don't have anything today, imagine if you woke up tomorrow with little to no friction. How much better would your life be? Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, I'll- Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And you're going to be tapped into the community. You're going to want to be a part of something that continues to build. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah, and it's like another example I get that you could use too is when you remove the stress of not being able to afford your medication or not being able to afford your rent, like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): or having to ration it. Like some people are getting sick and they're taking their medication, but they're not taking enough and they're still getting sick. Matt Conroy: I know. Yeah, the thing is, we're looking at abundance. Like for example, that's the book that a lot of people in Democrat, which drives me nuts because no, the abundance part is for the really wealthy. They already have all the abundance. They have extreme abundance. The people who are struggling, they don't need abundance. We just need enough. We just need enough that we can... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: pay our bills and still go to school, like take our kids to school or go to vacation or let them, if your son wants to play baseball, let play baseball. Your girl wants to play soccer or softball or basketball, but just having enough that you can be able to provide your kids the life that they want and that they deserve while also being able to work and afford your medication and afford the healthcare treatment that you need and contribute to the community and. you know, be a small business owner or whatever it is that you're spending your money on. You know, these aren't crazy things we're talking about. People who are struggling to pay their bills right now or rationing their medication aren't asking for $5 million a month. That's not what we're looking at. They just want to be able to know that for the rest of their lives, they're going to have their healthcare covered or they're going to not have to worry about going broke because of it. And that, in my opinion, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. That's not. Mm-hmm. And they also want to afford their own home so they can raise their kids in a neighborhood that's not riddled with drugs and guns. Matt Conroy: Yeah Yeah, and that comes to like making gun controls is a separate issue because like we said, like city Chicago has incredibly strict gun laws, Indiana doesn't, other state like, Illinois has strict gun laws, all the surrounding states don't, which is how these guns get funneled in. So we need enactment on the national level, like to address it 100%. And it kind of comes, goes back to how we approach cars. Like, look, we're not taking away your right to have a gun. We're basically saying for people who are dangerous, people who have ⁓ violent criminal pasts, who have mental health issues, you're not gonna, those people aren't gonna be able to get a gun, which you agree with. And for, and you know, and if you wanted a gun. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Exactly, exactly. I don't want everybody to have a car either. I want you to have the ability to have a car, but I don't need any. If you can't see, if you are nearsighted as fuck, I don't need you driving a car. Matt Conroy: Yeah, and if you- Yeah! Exactly, exactly. And that's really what it comes down to. you know, and then so getting back to the original point of like, making the investments in these communities, investing in housing, investing in education, investing in transportation, like just improving the lives of people is how we have to approach it. And for too long, our government, Republicans and Democrats have thought that they're doing a good job because they're passing these, these laws that affect climate change or affect this and don't get me wrong, like I don't disagree with climate change. But people who can't afford their medication don't give a shit about the sea lions or whatever. I'm not saying and again, I'm not saying do pass legislation that will address climate change. That's not all I'm saying. We have to focus our priorities. Over the last weekend, we had a candidate forum ⁓ and Quigley showed up and he was talking about how climate change is going to be the biggest issue that our grandchildren leave us on. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. Exactly. Matt Conroy: No, only wealthy grandchildren are gonna be like that. Most of the people in this country are gonna be like, why didn't you take care of us? Why didn't you get health insurance from my grandma so she passed away because she couldn't afford to go. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Why the hell is this tuna sandwich $45? Matt Conroy: Yeah, it's like, no, my grandma couldn't afford a routine checkup because healthcare is too expensive and she died. So why didn't you address that? We have all the money in the world. Like that's what most of the people in this country are thinking about. My uncle had to ration his blood pressure medication and died too soon because he didn't have enough. And like that is exactly, those are the issues that we're talking about. Yes, again, climate change is important. We should be addressing it, but we have to have our priorities, you know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And again, it's it's that education. I'm I'm I'm a poor brown kid from fuck it, the streets of Chicago. And I have maneuvered my way to being a software designer, somewhat programmer, somewhat ⁓ jack of all trades in Silicon Valley. Matt Conroy: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I was going somewhere with that. ADHD just kicked right in. What were we just talking about? Matt Conroy: Somebody popped their gummies a little early today, huh? No. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We were just talking about school? Matt Conroy: Yeah, we were talking about making investments in people, not prioritizing the right things. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. So yeah, and we're talking about ⁓ linking it to the environment. When I was in Chicago, I was worried about whether or not I was going to get a parking ticket, whether or not I had enough money for groceries, whether or not I had enough money to pay the rent. I couldn't care less. I couldn't care less about the whales in the ocean. I wasn't connected to the whales. I wasn't even connected to where vegetables come from. I mean, I know about like growing and being a gardener and all that stuff, but. I just knew that I didn't have to grow any of my own things. I would just go to the grocery store. So I'm disconnected from nature. Why? Because I have real person problems. I had problems that poor brown kids from the streets of Chicago have to deal with. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Now that I'm older and I've been on scientific vessels and I've done research as far as climate change and I've hung out with people in the climate change arena and I've learned a lot about acid rain and salt water versus fresh water and the struggle that is that and desalination and all that stuff. It took me a long time to actually tap into the environment and actually care about the environment and knowing that we're depleting the soil and all the things and single crop farming and all that stuff, all that stuff, all that to say poor brown kids and black kids and even white kids, poor people in the inner cities are disconnected. They don't give a shit because they are trying to survive. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Fix that and you will then be able to then fix the environment because everyone is gonna have the knowledge. Matt Conroy: Yeah, you can't tell people what they need to be concerned about. Look, again, climate change is a crisis. It's a legitimate issue and it affects all of us. But if I was struggling every single day, I would more be focused on where's my next meal coming from? Am I gonna have enough money for my health insurance or for my doc? And that is where I, yeah, exactly. That is exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. 100%, 100%. How am I gonna get to work? The L keeps breaking. Matt Conroy: why I keep saying you are not doing, not you, but like the officials, you are not doing a good job because you think that this is the issue of our lifetime. No, there are 28 million people without health insurance, 38 million people living below the poverty line and you still, that don't give a flying fuck about dolphins getting their nose stuck in the plastic things, like whatever, like again. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. that don't care about the environment. Yeah. And that's why it's easy for people like Trump to make fun of people like California. You know, we have scientists all up and down California, scientists and researchers and educators and all kinds of stuff. So when we're telling you about the plankton and all that stuff, it's because it's the entire system. But you think, you think Guadalupe with four kids and her husband is in jail gives a fuck about plankton? Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, and it's just, people want their lives to be a little bit easier. Like if you could, like we talked about, eliminate so much stress by raising taxes on roughly 1,100 people that you're able to, again, improve education, improve childcare, school meals, improve transportation, like whatever those policies look like to make people's lives better and the investments you make in communities to reduce crime. provide them job opportunities, educate them, feed them. That is what they want to see. And then, and only then can you make the investments that you need to make in climate change because it's such a tough sell for people who are struggling on a regular basis to say, go ahead, give $38 billion or $40 billion to address climate change along ⁓ coastal erosion and. in Maine or something like that, which again, like not arguing whatever the topic is, like, yes, we need to address both, but we have the resources to do it. We just need the political will to do it. And we don't seem to have that right now. And that is the biggest issue. So like when I'm out talking to voters and I'm knocking on doors or I see them out, like, thing is like, look, I'm running to help address your costs and make it, just make your lives a little bit better by reducing your healthcare costs and getting universal healthcare for all Americans. By addressing the housing crisis, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ooh, let me add this. Let me add this, because this is a wonderful example of how people, they're like, ⁓ if you just give everybody money, it's not going to work, the universal basic income argument, la la. A handful of years ago, I got to go to Dubai. Matt Conroy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They make so much money off of oil that everyone, if you're from Dubai, you get money. The only people that work, if you're from Dubai and you live in Dubai, the only reason you want to work is because you want a little extra. You want a bigger TV or you want to whatever. But for the most part, everyone there is lovely because they know that they're taken care of. Everyone's cool. And I understand that there's like political ramifications and the political things that are happening in the background. You know, they're making all the oil and they're all that they're polluting and they're doing all the things. I understand all of that. But so are we. But our people are struggling. There's aren't. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah, you know who one of the biggest polluters in the world is? The United States military. From their carbon emissions or just the fact that when they go and bomb a place and it has to be rebuilt, they are one of the world's largest polluters. There's this journalist, Abby Martin, who has this documentary out right now called World's Greatest Enemy, and it talks directly about that. And that's one of the things that we don't realize. The more money we continue to spend Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: on our military and the more devastation and bombings and killings that we do around the globe doesn't just affect the lives of people there, it affects the lives of everyone. Like it does contribute to the climate crisis. So that's like one of the things. Getting back to universal basic income, like, look, I think that's great. If we could do that today, I absolutely would support it. I think we need to get there first. Like I am someone who realizes that we need to make steps in the right direction and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure. Matt Conroy: once and only once if we have universal health care, universal childcare, paid family leave, school meals, like we have those covered and then we still have enough where we can say, okay, let's look at universal basic income. Then absolutely, like it's something that we should do to ensure, again, this goes to a rising tide lifts all boats, but let's take care of some other issues first ⁓ because once we get those first few dominoes to fall, it's easier to probably tackle that universal basic income argument. ⁓ when people see just how much these other social programs have improved their lives. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Now, what was your early childhood like? Matt Conroy: Yeah, so I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. yeah, Brooklyn. I have three younger sisters. ⁓ I was actually raised by a single mom after my dad was killed. He died in the September 11 terrorist attacks. ⁓ Thank you, I appreciate it. And, you know, like we were, you know, my mom taught me, you know, kind of seeing her raise us by herself, like taught me the importance of Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Brooklyn. ⁓ I'm sorry, dude. Matt Conroy: of hard work and like putting, you know, self-sacrifice, putting yourself ahead of others. And, you know, when you do that, you're more often than not, like the benefit of the group or the benefit of others is gonna benefit you too. And it's how like two of my sisters are teachers. So that's kind of like in that same vein, you know, I'm running for office, like you're directly. graded or at least should be graded and judged based on how well you're doing for your constituents and the people who put you in office. So I feel like that really uniquely satisfies me. you know, we were fortunate, you we both, we all played sports growing up playing and I played baseball and hockey still do to this day. My sisters played basketball. and you know, we, we, we kind of lived a normal life, the kind of like inner city, like upbringing that you always hear about, you know, like it was the most diverse place, like on my block. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: We had, you know, my family's Irish. Next door was, you know, my buddy Mike, his family's Italian. To the other side was like a multi-family with an Hispanic family in the basement, a Middle Eastern family on the first floor who was the same age as us and played sports every day. Top floor was ⁓ a gay couple, which was like my first exposure to it. And they're like, you know, like, cause they're the young kids, not something you think about, but it... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: like growing up around diversity and people like that, it really does make you realize that they're not the enemy. You don't need to be mad at these people, you know? We lived, so where we lived in Brooklyn too, like one block up was a very Hispanic area, like mix of like Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, but two blocks past that was Borough Park, which is where a lot of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews live. So like we had a very... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's not. ⁓ huh. Matt Conroy: very diverse group of friends, diverse group of people that hung out, diverse neighborhood. And it's just like, I love that. That's why when I hear people talk bad about cities, it makes my blood boil because it's, know, look, does Chicago do things wrong? Does New York? Sure, absolutely. Everywhere does certain things wrong. But don't just be like, oh, it's a hellhole. like, you know what? Fuck you, man. You in fucking bumfuck Nebraska, you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Right. Hahaha Matt Conroy: you stupid fucking hick shut the hell up, you know, and it's just like, if you haven't lived it or experienced it, like you don't, you don't truly understand it, you know, and the biggest, the easiest example I can give to people is Los Angeles, because Los Angeles is so unique by each neighborhood you go to. And if you go to the wrong neighborhood and you're visiting, you hate it. And I understand it because it's like, if you're someone who's a little grungy, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: and like you're like kind of like what we would call a hipster and you stay in like Manhattan Beach or you stay kind of near Beverly near Beverly Hills you're like this place sucks but if you stay in like Silver Lake or you stay in East LA yeah you're like ⁓ this place is awesome you know and it's just like but you have to experience it the right way so like growing up for me in a city I just hate when people are just like ⁓ that place sucks it's like no like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Matt Conroy: You know, like it sucks driving in LA everywhere. But like there are neighborhoods that suck and neighborhoods like you don't really want to hang out in. So when you just give a blanket statement that a city sucks, it's like, yeah, man, like you are so uninformed and you do not understand anything about it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Yeah. Like I, I did. Yeah. I, I, I understand why people are nervous about Compton, but I have every time I've gone to Compton, I've had a wonderful time. I've done photo shoots. I've done. Yeah. But you know, if, if it doesn't make sense to you, or if you're not, if you've never been exposed to that. Matt Conroy: You lived here. You know, you know. some of the best food in the world there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you're going to think that it sucks. Matt Conroy: Or you're just that racist and scared of black people too, which a lot of, which unfortunately a lot of this country is. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, but that's why they live not in LA. I mean, they do have races in LA and stuff like that, but it's... I have a sister that lives out there. She's not racist. At least I don't think so. Yeah, my sister's out there starting trouble. What are you doing with that wood and that fire? ⁓ Matt Conroy: Yeah. They live in Riverside. Hehehehehe Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So you grew up in Brooklyn. you had a front row, you had a front row seat to our president when he was a businessman, a real estate mogul. So what was it like having a self-made millionaire so you can look at, you can, so you can ⁓ fashion your life from, from this glorious self-made businessman. Matt Conroy: Dead. Yeah. ⁓ my god. Yeah, I think the term self-made is just so ridiculous. and about him especially, but look, a lot of people, you either got help or you got incredibly lucky along the way. Like I'm not, ⁓ like, for people who, you know, like, ⁓ like, you know, I grew up, I, you know, I, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hahaha Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: dropped out of high school or I graduated high school and then I started this business and I made all this money just because of hard work. It's like, look, I'm not, I'm not describing that you did hard work, but you have to admit you got incredibly lucky when you did. You were lucky that that, you know, that that business storefront was open or the timing or whatever it is. Like there is so much luck. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. You got lucky that someone else invented the internet. You're lucky that someone else invented Instagram and social media. Matt Conroy: Yeah, and it's Yes, and that the events leading up to you becoming a business owner, you doing whatever, do it. And it's okay, like it's okay to admit that you work hard and you got lucky. Like I'm so incredibly lucky to be born in the situation that I was in and raised in the upbringing I was in and end up where I am today. And like I've worked hard, like I'm not gonna discredit it, but I'm also not gonna lie about how I worked hard. If you are born into a family that's worth several hundred million dollars and that's what you're gifted again as your father leaves and then you continue to make money by completely corrupting the working class by screwing over contractors and unions and electricians, you're not self-made. You're a fucking scumbag. you know, we had, I never had anyone in my friends or family who were directly like involved with it, but Again, they all worked labor union jobs. They all worked as contractors, electricians, plumbers. They all knew people or had people in their union that they worked with that were screwed over by him by any of his jobs from Atlantic City up to New York. And it's just like, that's how con men operate. And that's how, even looking at it, he is the mafia. He operates like the mafia. And that's the easiest way. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Everybody, all his friends have been telling you, his lawyer told you. Matt Conroy: Yeah, and it's like, one of my favorite movies is Goodfellas. think Goodfellas is an odd, like one of the best movies ever. But when you think about it, if you just kind of like close your eyes and just replace like all the mafia mentions and just be like Trump and his associates and just like think of it from that standpoint, you're like, oh, you know? And it's like, again, like, you know, it's just, it's just really, really, and this kind of goes to how money changes people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: you know, and how it completely warps you and like, look, Donald Trump is a criminal, he's a pedophile, he's a rape, he's a rapist, he's a racist, he's a piece of shit, like we can go down the list. But like money has a completely corrupting influence on who you are. And so does power, in my opinion. Like, you know, do you have any kids? Yeah, do you have kids? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Money and power is basically the same thing. I have one, yeah. Matt Conroy: How old? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 34. Yeah. Matt Conroy: Okay, so ⁓ an adult kid like me, okay. When they were a child, like a baby, they probably only hated taking a nap, vegetables, homework. You don't hate people when you're a kid because of the base on the color of your skin, or you don't hate people because they're a woman, or because they're different than you. Every single thing and manner of hate that has become mainstream today is taut behavior, and it's the most disgusting thing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. Matt Conroy: that exists and you look at Stephen Miller, you look at Donald Trump, all of that hate is being taught and fed not just to their children when they were raising them, but to hundreds of millions and billions of people around the, yeah, and it's just like, that to me just is even more so why I fucking despise him because he doesn't have a good fiber in his body. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. to all ⁓ Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: And it's just he's the most despicable person out there. And you just see it. He had a show that he got that he enjoyed firing people. He enjoyed telling people you are no longer going to have a job or an opportunity. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, now you have to go struggle somewhere else. And it's because they probably didn't kiss his ass. That's what I'm saying. Like when people are like, ⁓ good, the US has to be run like a corporation. I'm like, no, it doesn't. Because because I don't want to have to kiss someone's ass just to make a living. Matt Conroy: and people loved it. Yeah. Yeah, and not even that. ⁓ look at the tariffs, for example, like look at the trade deficit. Like having a trade deficit is a good thing. It means that you are a bigger country and you have a bigger economy than the person you're trading with and you're leveraging your size and your GDP and your resources to get a good deal with this country, you know, typically often a poorer. smaller country who is just looking to get some money and sell some products, whether it be t-shirts that they're making over there or, you know, making cell phones internationally. So to say we're going to manage it like a business and we're going to have a trade deficit of zero is just asinine. Like that's why you cannot think of the government like a business. Here's another example. People are like, ⁓ mass transit loses money. Great. How much does how much do roads lose? How about the military? How much does the military return on profit every single year? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, well it depends on who you ask. Matt Conroy: Not a fucking dime. And that's part of the problem. Yeah, but there's no measurable budget for it. So in that case, we're losing $900 billion this year. So when you look at it, like you absolutely cannot think of how do I do this? The way that we need to think about government is going to the gym. Is it gonna be a little bit of a struggle early on, but long-term, is it gonna be beneficial? Are making these investments in myself, in my community? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: in schools, roads, education, are they going to be good for the long term health? There's gonna be bumps and bruises along the way. You might get hurt, you you might pull a muscle at the gym, something like that, like that's part of life. But long term, it's going to be good for you. And that's how we have to approach government. Like, we have to stop thinking so short term. And we like, again, China, lots of problems. But guess what they did? They just thought about the long term game. If we take that approach, that is how you know, we can start to really hopefully get our country on the right track economically, investing in people, investing in our future. And that is how moving forward, you're gonna create like a self-sustaining economy, something that provides economic opportunity for all, education, housing, transportation, you name it. And that's how we have to think. We have to stop thinking so short-term and short-sighted and think long-term. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'm glad you said that because you verified the comparison that I've always been trying to make and it's a gym. The United States is a gym. Taxes are the membership fees. And you have a certain group of people that are, you know, the toxic dude that shows up and he's got all the muscles and and he wants to do whatever he wants whenever he wants and he's throwing weights around. He doesn't put the plates back where they belong or he goes to the pool and he pees in the pool or he ruins the hot tub or whatever. You know, you wouldn't want that person in the gym, let alone being the manager of the gym. Everyone is here to work out. We have a thing. We everyone is here to get their exercise on. Please. Matt Conroy: I got a better analogy for you. So the rich person, the Jeff Bezos, the Elon Musk, they are the person at the gym that is taking up every piece of equipment. like, nah, man, I'm using that. I'm using that. And now there's three benches. It's like, dude, how can you use three bench presses at once? Because I'm using them. I'm doing shoulder press here, I'm doing bench press here, and I'm doing tricep dips here. And it's like, okay, that makes no sense. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Tell me. Yeah. Yeah. But you were just over there. Yeah. But you didn't pay your membership fees. Like, what are you doing? Matt Conroy: Or they're the person that is filming themselves and saying, can you get out of my shot? And they're forcing you to stand over in the corner with the rest of the, with everyone else. And so it looks like there's no one in the gym, you know? And it's like, okay, that's who they are. And it's like, wait. So, cause the thing is we pay taxes. So technically we are in the club, but we're not allowed to use any of the machines. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Meanwhile, your machine is in the way. That's exactly who they are. Matt Conroy: That's how it is. That's really what it comes down to. And then, and then finally, when it's open up or that person is not in the gym, there's an out of service sign on it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: so they can't even use it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. That's so brutal. I love it. Matt Conroy: You know, it's like healthcare, healthcare, we pay for healthcare, but when we need it, is it actually there for most Americans? The answer is no. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then when you use it, you get penalized. your copay is going to go up. What? Matt Conroy: Yep, exactly. Yeah. It's like what? Yeah. And it's not just health insurance, even like homeowners insurances like that. I had a buddy of mine who he owned a condo here in the city and he got kicked off of his homeowners insurance for filing too many claims for things that broke that he did nothing to do. Like his HVAC broke one time, he filed a claim for that so they could cover it. Another one, his oven broke again. Like he had only lived in the place for a year and a half. And it's just like, eventually they're like, yeah, we're not going to let you renew your policy. He ended up getting... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: another policy with another company, but it's like, ⁓ okay, so it's not just health insurance, it's all insurance companies. And you, I mean, you also see it now too with like, going back to climate change. Property insurers are completely pulling out of markets. So now you have these homeowners in Florida and other regions around the country that are gonna be gambling, basically. It's like, okay, I'm gonna take this risk that hopefully nothing happens, but what if something does? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's all insurance. Yeah. Yeah. How much of that do you think is engineered? Like, I have a feeling that all of these property owners are wanting to rent to us. So they're going to make housing expensive and they're going to make insurance expensive. And how much easier would it be for you if you just rented it? We'll take care of everything else. You just give us $2,500, $3,000 a month. Matt Conroy: Yeah, well the problem with that is that rent is already expensive and housing is already expensive. they've already achieved their goal if that's the case. But part of it is that it's just too difficult for people to build. For example, in the city of Chicago, there's roughly like 150 unique zoning ordinances, which is absurd. In the entire country of Japan, there's just 12. So a country of 100 million has 12 different zoning codes or 12 different zoning laws for you to build property. And you can request, but that makes it easier. Limiting the restrictions and red tape on specific properties makes it easier to build. Look, corporate home ownership is a problem, but it's not the biggest problem with home ownership. There's just quite frankly, not enough housing available. That's what it comes down to. It's a supply and demand issue. And we need to make sure that yes, we prevent black rock investment firms. large corporations from owning homes and keep using them as investment vehicles and keeping, you know, people who want to buy a place like me or you or anyone else from owning one and driving up costs. That's number one. But we just need to build more. That's what it comes down to. need and the reason I keep coming back to mass transit and I come in, keep coming back to housing is because these, the two are connected. If you expand, let's say the subway system in Miami. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: You wanna build dense housing near that subway because people who live near there are gonna wanna take the rail to and from work or wherever they have to go to. That's what prevents this crazy sprawl. That's what limits climate change or helps reduce the effects on climate change. And it really does help save people money because by living near accessible, reliable and safe mass transit, you are no longer forced to rely on an automobile. which the cost is now again over $50,000 for a new car, is just for the car, not even the maintenance, not even the gas, everything. Yeah, we'll call it another grand per month that you're gonna be all in on that, which is 12 grand a year. When I first graduated college in 2011, my rent, just my rent was $600 a month in the city of Boston, which is crazy to think. Like there's no way that exists today, you know? So. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): just for the car too. Car insurance is getting bonkers too. Matt Conroy: We have to get back to a point where we can make it easier to build where in a perfect world, we would be able to leave it to the states and cities. But once they show us that they're not able to do so, which is where we are, the federal government needs to step in and say, okay, time for the adults to take over. We're going to solve this problem. You know, and I think that's best way to do it. So. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You wanna hear? Now that we're breaking down prices and stuff, my first job out of college, I worked at a video game company. And when they made me the offer to come on full time, they offered me $25,000 a year. Matt Conroy: What year? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): This was 2000, 1999, 2000, right in there. Matt Conroy: And you could live pretty comfortably, it feels like on that at the time. You weren't. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No, I didn't take the job. I went to the place that offered me $40,000. $25,000 a year is $2,000, just over $2,000 a month. Matt Conroy: No, yeah, no, what a- Yeah, no, the average rent at that time was probably way cheaper. like what I saying is if you did take it, you could afford housing and you could afford your groceries and stuff like that nowadays. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I could afford housing. I did the budget. I could afford housing and my car and my car insurance. I couldn't afford groceries. That's where it was. Matt Conroy: you had a card sign. Okay, there you go. Okay, that was yeah, I mean, and wages haven't gone up or haven't gone up with the with the same rate that the cost of goods have, including housing, groceries, car insurance. And that's why people are so fucking mad at the government. Because again, this gets back to we keep letting the benefits only keep going to be keeping about how good the economy has been since the year 2000 and how much it's But yet Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Matt Conroy: It's not showing for average people. know, like people are still struggling to pay their bills and get by. And yet we keep seeing like Jeff Bezos spent what $50 million it was on his wedding this year. It's like, you know, in Venice and you know, people like the amount of we see that after the Super Bowl, we always see that same tweet. Here are the private jets leaving LA or leaving Vegas or wherever it's held. And it's like, man, how about just fly commercial? How about fly first class? Like, you know, what's wrong with that? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ You want to see a fun one? You want to see a fun one? Take a look or do a search, whatever, for ⁓ all these meetings for environmentalists and see how many private planes leave that local airport. That one's fun. That one's fun. Matt Conroy: Oh yeah, this is exactly why I hate being lectured by my member of Congress about what an environmental person he is. And it's like, okay, how'd you get here today? Did you walk? Did you take the bus or did you drive? You fly back and forth several times a year. I understand the job calls for that, but you guys in Congress could easily change the rules to allow you to have more time in your district and less time in DC and vote virtually. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: and allow people to do certain procedural things like that that could actually have an impact. No, no, and look, I just. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right, right, because they're not doing shit anyway. They did all of all of what was the number all of last year, they worked to 47 days. Matt Conroy: something ridiculous, yeah. And it was the least productive Congress ever. And this one's on track to be even worse. So it just goes to show that they're all just hypocrites. That's what they are. Like they're either a thief or they're a hypocrite. And the thieves are the ones who are using their position to insider trade, enrich themselves, enrich their donors, or they're hypocrites who sit, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ever. And Trump told us, Trump told us, he says, ⁓ you say whatever you want on the campaign trail. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Now he's in office and he's doing nothing that he said, except going at, except going quote, even he told us what he was going to do for immigration. Kamala Harris tried to tell us and people just didn't listen. But you know, like he said, he's going to go after the worst of the worst. And that's not the case. That's not why they're, no, if it was about the worst of the worst, you wouldn't be snatching people up from job sites, working construction or landscaping. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Nothing. That's not the case. That's not the case. You would go to Washington DC. You would start in Washington DC and you go to into inside one of those really pretty buildings and you start getting all the crooks from out there because those crooks are stealing your tax money. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah, and people who are following the immigration system, showing up for their court hearings, instead we're snatching them up. Mask men roaming through our streets, murdering US citizens. So don't tell me it's ever about the worst of the worst. That's not what it is about. It's about fear, it's about control, it's about intimidation, it's about him trying to be a dictator and play emperor, which you're seeing now in Iran and Venezuela, and it's looking like Cuba's next. It is a very, very... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's not. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Rubio's been... Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah. I mean, you know, he'll never be president of the United States. So it's at least the one thing he'd like to be president of or claim to rule type of thing. it's just. Governor. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He wants to be governor. He'll take the governor of Cuba. It's like Greenland, but just a little different. ⁓ Matt Conroy: Yeah, and he's just such a miserable fucking prick. yeah, it's really, really sad because... You know, we, the Republican party is a cult is like the easiest way to describe it is it is a cult and. No one in that party and no one in the Democratic Party really has like the courage to even like stand up and say like what is happening and where this is going. Like there are a few people within the Democratic Party who are ringing the alarm bells and you know like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): How much of that do you think is lack ⁓ versus ⁓ need to know your place because ⁓ like AIPAC has ⁓ you to know your place and shut the hell up? Matt Conroy: It's probably a little bit of both. ⁓ I mean, look, like that also, it also comes back to the money and politics thing. Like until you get money out of politics, there is gonna be a, there's never really gonna be any like change, you know, and it's really gonna be really tough to, to enact the things. like leadership can come from the right places. Like for example, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Right. Matt Conroy: We all know Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries are completely unfit for leadership and not up to it. like I say it publicly, I say it on my Twitter account, I say it everywhere. Like I would not vote for these people. was in an interview with Axios and so were a couple other candidates back in, I wanna say November, said the same thing and I'll continue to say the same thing. And it's like, no, I will never vote for you because you don't show any leadership. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: any skills or any sort of political instinct that this type of position needs. Like it took and it's like, again, just ⁓ my chair. There we go. I, foot hit it. So, so I ⁓ think a little bit of both and really to me, what it comes down to is this. I, while you're right that AIPAC says like, know your place or other donors or whatever it is, it's like, know your place. The voters would respect you a Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Zero backbone. Matt Conroy: hell of a lot more if you did speak out. if you were someone who said this, you know, like if Ro Khanna came out tomorrow and said, yeah, King Jeffries should not be speaker of the house. He's too weak. I'm going to call it, ⁓ you know, kind of like what they did with Kevin McCarthy and get him out if they did the same thing. So, and the voters would respect that and the donations would flood in and he'd be like, okay, he's said to be our next leader. So I do kind of really think that it is a part of people just being a little uneasy to rock the boat, you know, and that's one of the things that my charger go. My computer's about to die. That is one of the things that I think the, just really concerns me, you know, and the number one example I give is, look, I still play sports. And that's how we kind of have to approach it in that sense, where it's like, look, you're gonna lose some battles, you're gonna lose some political battles, you're gonna lose votes, like, Do not be afraid to fight. That doesn't mean don't show up and play the game. You have to also call out your teammates when you're not doing stuff right. Like if I'm not covering the right position or I'm letting my teammates down, they're gonna call me out and they're gonna do so in front of everyone else. that's sometimes what you have to do. And I think that's how we have to approach it. We have to stop being the party that's trying to placate and please everyone. And sometimes you have to say things publicly that are even gonna upset members of your own party. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Right. And you have to remember that it's the members of your own party didn't send you to Washington. It's the people that voted for you. what do you get? What does Matt Conroy give two shits what Rokana says? Rokana might not understand what's happening in illustration in Illinois. You know, and mad love for Rokana. I got nothing but love and respect for him, but he doesn't know what's happening in Chicago or in the suburbs of Chicago. So who gives a shit what he thinks? Matt Conroy: Yeah, and I also think too, like one of the things with leadership is empowering the people that work, that are not in leadership. So the other members of your party to speak out, to allow them to say what they want. Like I don't have, like I don't understand why when people have a disagreement, they're so afraid to say something. It's like, look man, I don't agree with this policy. I think we should like, I think we should be taxing billionaires. And it's like, look, we feel different ways about different things, you know? So. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: It does like we let fear and concern about upsetting the base and the donors pretty much control everything within them in the Democratic Party. And you just you can't be afraid like you do like this is a position that you have to show courage. You you sold yourself as a fighter. You saw, you know, people when they run that I'm going to fight for change or I'm going to do this. And the moment you got their complacency and that is You know, that is a big, big problem. And part of it is also the time that people sit in office. You know, they're comfortable. They have a guaranteed government paycheck. They have their pension. They have their health benefits. You know, they have the backing of the party. It's safe. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And they have and they have the leaders of that party saying, Okay, now that you're here, don't rock the boat. Matt Conroy: Yep, and that's a big issue because guess what? You have to rock the boat. Look at the world we're in. can't, like the boat is taking on water. It's been taking on water since the 1970s. Guess what? You're not gonna cross the Atlantic Ocean with a boat that's taking on water. You have to get the water off the boat. So how do you do that? Well, you gotta rock it or you gotta get it off somehow and you gotta patch the holes that's allowing water to come on the ship. Healthcare, education, housing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: everything we've talked about all day. Those are the holes in the boat and the Democratic Party has refused to patch the holes in the boat that is taking on water and they refuse to do anything to get the water and they wonder why they're fucking drowning. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. Exactly. Matt Conroy: Yeah, you know, and it's like, you're a voter too. Like, you know, like you are probably having all these same discussions off camera too with your friends, your family, like just how disappointing it is that there's no one who is, or very few people who are like rising to meet the moment and understand what's going on. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And not even that I don't fully understand all of AOC's platform. But what I do like what she's doing is she's constantly communicating and connecting with her constituents. She's trying to explain to people, hey, you guys, this is how it's supposed to work. This is what's happening. I love that. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah, those are great. Yeah, I think an easy win for any congressman or congresswoman would be just every single week going on like Instagram or TikTok, like not even doing a live, but doing a video and be like, hey, this is what's going on this week. These are the couple bills I'm looking at that I'm gonna vote for and here's why. Here's what I'm voting against, or here's what we're working on this week. Here's the legislation that we're trying to pass. Here's what we're up against and why this legislation won't pass. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: Like, yes, it's nitty gritty. It's not always stuff, but like that's transparency. It's informing and educating your voters. And it's also showing them like what you're actually working on and what you're doing. Cause that's part of the thing that people like, it's like, okay, like what are you actually doing for me? Like we're sending you to DC. Like what are you actually doing? What are you working on? Because then you could also see, okay, they're not working on anything that's going to improve my life. I need to vote for someone else. You know, I, again, coming to the, coming back to climate change. If that's like their number one thing they're working on, it's like, okay, look, you have homeless people, people who are living on the street in your district. You have people on food stamps in your district and your focus is climate change. How about in focus on increasing their wages? How about focus on providing them with healthcare, providing them with an education, giving them the basic necessities that they need. And if you're not gonna do that and you're not gonna work for that, we're gonna replace you and vote for someone else. And it just comes back to like... communicating and it allows the more you get out there and talk, the more you connect with people, it allows you to sharpen your message, to craft your message, to get better at it. So when the Democratic Party plays turtle and hides from its voters, particularly on Gaza and Palestine, they are just, which again, they take the they're on the completely wrong side of the issue. Like again, it's a we haven't even really touched on it, but it's like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Matt Conroy: took two hours, which I'm embarrassed to say, but it's like, it's a genocide and they haven't, they haven't come out and admitted it and they haven't talked about it and they haven't heard the pushback from their voters to adapt and change their position. And when you tell yourself what you want to hear and not what you need to hear, that's where you, you will set yourself up for failure. And that's where we are right now. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Let's go to the fifth district. What's going on in the fifth district? If it's not, I don't know how many suburbs are in your district. So I don't know if it's gonna take 45 minutes to list them all, but okay. Matt Conroy: Yeah. No, it goes out to Lake Zurich. So it stretches for about 40, 45 miles. So it kind of goes from Gold Coast. So for people who don't know Chicago, Gold Coast is basically just north of kind of like the river Trump Tower, maybe about a mile, mile and a half north of there. And it stretches kind of up along the lake to Wrigleyville. It includes parts of like Lincoln Park, Bucktown, Wicker Park, and goes up to North Park, you know, kind of, and then it hugs. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Matt Conroy: an upper Northwest rail line, I-90-ish, and goes out, hits a little bit like Schiller Park, a little bit of Rosemont, ⁓ Barrington, Arlington Heights. So like for people who know, easiest way to describe it, Northwest suburbs, you know, within commuter distance. So, but it's... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's my old stomping around there. I'm a North Side kid. And then I went to Triton College and then I just kept going further and further out. Went to Triton College. I lived in Arlington Heights for when I went to film school and then I went to film school and eventually lived in Schomburg. And then I moved to Matt Conroy: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): moved to LA, came back, lived in Palatine, moved back to LA because I'm hard headed and now I'm up north. But yeah, that Northwest, like you would be representing my stomping ground. Well, Albany Park is what, seven, I think, District Seven. So almost my whole childhood. ⁓ Matt Conroy: Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Schomburg is a different district, but the other Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's, it's look, it's a district that it's not. It's not like a lot of these rural districts you see in like Wisconsin or Nebraska or something like that, where there's one company that makes up like 80 % of the jobs and that like, it's a very, it's it's a urban suburban district, like there's not a lot of difference between this district. And one that would cover a similar ground in New York or San Francisco, like it's, you know, lot of people commute into the city. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. right. Right. Sure. Matt Conroy: You know, lot of the schools in the suburbs are very good. There's a lot of high school and districts. The public schools on the north side are good too. It includes like Lane Tech, Lincoln Park High School, there's private school, Lakeview, there's private schools like DePaul. it is a, it is the, on average, the wealthiest district in the state of Illinois. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And people don't realize Arlington Heights is anywhere else. Arlington Heights would be a big city. The bears were moving there for on purpose. Matt Conroy: Yeah, it's a big, big suburb. Yeah, yeah. it's, I mean, the thing is a lot of I mean, the district is anchored in the city, just like a lot of the congressional districts are in, you know, along the lakefront. But the people out in the suburbs, they want the same things like they want just they want their life to just be a little bit easier. They want the representation to listen to them, which is one thing that doesn't happen. You know, I met with someone from Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure. Matt Conroy: one of the townships out there who's part of the party and she's like, yeah, biggest complaint is we don't see him. We don't hear from him. time we talk to his office, it's a, know, Mike Quigley's office, it's always like, yeah, we'll send someone out there. He's there, you know? And I told him, said, look, I can only tell you right now and I'll show you when I'm in office. But one the things that I've committed to is I'll hold at least 10 town halls a year. I would ideally like to hold one per month. ⁓ Some months might not be possible, but you need to make sure that people hear you. ⁓ Going out. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: going out and even just knocking on doors and talking to voters or meeting them at, you know, standing at a grocery store or parking lot for a couple hours on a Saturday morning and, you know, local coffee shop, walking through town squares. People need to see or they need to hear from you. You can't just show up at donor events. You can't just show up at stuff that your office put together. You do have to continue to be part of the community, which is something that's not happening right now. We were at that same town hall event where Mike Quigley claim that he's like, I had the best response staff and office in the state. And that's just, I don't know where he got that from. It's probably just something he pulled out of his ass. ⁓ But that's not true. And how do I know that? Because I called his campaign office months ago, asking for him to debate with us and show the voters of this district his plan for the future if he's asking for it. Not a word, not even a follow up. I went to his office the day that he announced his candidacy for mayor. just to go up to see if I could schedule an appointment and see if they would get back to me. And just be like, hey, I would love to talk to him about why he's still in this race, what his severe, what his legitimate motivations are that he thinks he'd be good at two jobs at the same time when he hasn't been good at one. They didn't let me up, they told me to go to the website, haven't heard since, it's been over a month and a half. That's the thing, it's like, no, you're not responding to people. And that, again, is a response that I hear from people all over the district. And he's not leading on any issue. It's a safe blue district. I think it's a plus 23 plus 25 Democrat district. So whoever wins his primary is going to Congress. Like there's no mistake about it. And I asked voters, what's his stance on the $25 minimum wage? What's his stance on universal childcare? Paid family leave. Where is he on these issues? He's not leading. doesn't, like, ⁓ he supports. like, where's your proof? He only has. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: two mentions of either the phrase universal healthcare or Medicare for all on his website. One of them was the time he voted for it. The other time it's describing Jan Schlikowski who's the retiring representative from the ninth district. So he doesn't even have it as like a supporting issue on his issues page. Like he has healthcare, but it's a bunch of consultant, know, poll tested speech. And that's a big problem when you don't take legitimate stances on one issue or another and. say firmly, this is what I'm gonna work on. This is what I'm gonna fight to address. What are you actually doing for the people that? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then you haven't really done much for the district and then you're going into, I can only imagine how... rugged you have to be to go and try to take the job of mayor of Chicago. It's not an easy job. Lori Lightfoot got beat up over it. ⁓ I can't remember his name right now. The guy right Brandon Johnson. He's getting it handed to him right now. So you haven't done anything since two to well, that might not be fair. I might be talking out of my ass. I'm Matt Conroy: Brandon Johnson. No, I'll give you his legislative record. He's been in office since 2009. He has sponsored four pieces of legislation, two of them renamed post office. One of them is has to do with big cat safety like Panthers, Jaguars, things like that. I'm an animal lover. Sure, great bill, but it doesn't help address. The other one is an ALS bill that helps with neurological, the people who have ALS and neurologic treatment. Good bill, good bill. I fully support that one. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I'm in. I'm in. Sure. Perfect. Amen. Matt Conroy: 17 years, you haven't done anything to address the cost of living. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, if I had a job for 17 years and I did four things. ⁓ Matt Conroy: Yeah, exactly. that and look, he's not he's not unique to that. Like Raja is doing the same type of thing running for the Senate. Half of his legislation he's passed is renaming post office. It's like that's not what people elected you to do. I was like, if I told people I was going to run to do that, they should vote for someone else, which is exactly why they shouldn't vote for you. So yeah, you're right. Like he hasn't done anything. He hasn't made the improvements or or been, you know, the representative that it needs to be. That's, again, where I come back to the point of you are not doing a good job. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Matt Conroy: You think you are and you act offended when people question it, but when you actually look at it, you and the Democratic Party are not doing a good job. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and it sucks, especially coming from Chicago. If you give a Chicagoan anything to talk shit about, we will relish in it and we are efficient at shit talking. Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You gave us Caleb Williams and we can't shut up. Could you imagine if you were someone of any moral substance or any political substance that's going to come out and hang out and say, hey, ⁓ this is the battle plan that I'm going to come up with. Here's my bullet point list. Tung, tung, tung, tung, tung. And I'm going to check in with you every month. Matt Conroy: Yeah, I know. Yeah, and it's the other thing too that I say for for politicians is like, look, if you are actually fighting for these issues, meaning you're talking about them regularly, you're posting about them regularly on social, you're holding town halls, you're holding events to to to address and educate voters and constituents on health care, child care, whatever the issue is. Even if you're unable to pass it, because I know it's hard to pass legislation, we I'm going to give you credit for trying. But you're not even trying. There's no proof that you're trying. And that's the part with the Democratic Party. for example, they probably could pass a ban on congressional stock trading right now, considering Trump brought it up in the State of the Union. There's a couple of Republicans who seem to be on board for it. You probably could get one with some teeth. They want to hold it out as a campaign issue. And it's like, come on, what are we seriously doing at this point? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's the part. That's the part. We need to we need to start putting up like a scoreboard or something that says the player name, Quigley, ⁓ stats in 18 years. He's done four things. Money coming from over there and then Matt Conroy: sent billions to Israel committing a genocide, voted ⁓ for legislation that reduces access to abortion and reproductive rights, ⁓ claims to support a two state Palestinian solution, yet voted for legislation that basically puts that at zero, like no chance of that happening. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. ignored all of the important things that are happening in the Chicagoland area because Hakeem Jeffries said to wait. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, yeah. And, like at the forum, like when we were like wrapping up, it's like, why are you best? You know, basically everyone's like their final like minute pitch. He just let off, read off a list of appropriations. It's like, dude, that's not what people elect you for. We don't elect you to go to us Congress to give us money for bike lanes. We elect you to enact meaningful change. Look, I'm all for bike lanes. Like, let's do it. Like, sure. But again, if that's your signature accomplishment, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What? You Me too. Yeah. Matt Conroy: Maybe you're just not that good at your fucking job. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. It's cool that we have bike lanes, but there's a bunch of homeless people that keep getting in the way of the bike lanes. Matt Conroy: Yeah, don't want to really ride my bike if the air I'm breathing in sucks because you haven't addressed climate change and you haven't addressed transportation. So thank you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah And I don't want to ride my bike to, you know, four miles over there because it's a food desert. But cool. Thanks, Hakeem Jeffries for whatever it is that you're not doing. Matt Conroy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the part that annoys me the most about the Democratic Party is there's just such an easy, easy opportunity for them to just pick up the ball and run with it. Look, Donald Trump and Look, I don't think Donald Trump's going to leave office, but if he does, like, what does the Republican Party look like after that? Me personally, I don't think there's anybody who can kind of keep them together the way that Donald Trump has. Like even if JD Vance is the next nominee, like parts of the party is going to break off from him. that's, but Democrats have to show that they can pick up the ball and run with it. And there's an easy opportunity. even for the people who are self-called moderates, the people who Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 100%. And that's just it. Yeah. Matt Conroy: voted for Trump that voted, you know, in 2024 that voted for Biden. Okay, well, how are you gonna make their lives better? A lot of them probably just want you to address healthcare, want you to address wages, want you to address the cost of living, okay? But. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Why don't you address not bombing other countries so we can use that money to make things better here at home, stuff like that. Matt Conroy: Yeah, and that's also the uncommitted movement, the people who didn't vote for Joe Biden or Kamala Harris in 2024 that sat out. You're not gonna get them back if you don't change your stances. You cannot continually shift to the, there's only so many voters you can win on the middle. There are more voters on the left and people who do not even come out to vote that you could win by taking true populist positions. Excuse me, and in today's political landscape, if you got to a point, where you have to 57 % of the public vote, Republicans are never getting back in power. It doesn't matter what the elections look like. Like maybe they'll win the House one term, maybe they'll win the Senate, but you start passing public policy, or popular public policy, and you start addressing people's needs, you are going to have a stranglehold, a good stranglehold on the White House. And they just, can't seem to, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You could simplify that just by saying, do your job. Matt Conroy: They can't seem to do it. Yeah, exactly. Do your fucking job. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Do your job so we can, otherwise you gotta get out. And I love that we're at a point now where, yeah, the internet is really noisy and we're, but we're able to see and we're able to call out and we're even more importantly, we're able to communicate with each other to say, hey, there's a band of misfits from Florida. that don't think rules apply to them, that make decisions that affect your life negatively. Matt Conroy: Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): The decisions that have been made this weekend, ⁓ I don't know about you, but I love traveling. I've been all over the place and I love to be gone. Wanderlust. I have a bad case of wanderlust. Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah. Just spray my eye. Keep drawing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): But I'm not going to be able to go to the Middle East or wherever is happening over there now because everyone hates Americans. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah, it's I was fortunate enough. I've been to Asia, went to Tokyo. ⁓ Like traveling, I think traveling is the number one thing that everyone needs to do because I feel like the moment you travel to a country and you go somewhere else, like even if it's to a country that like Iran, for example. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yes. not even a country. If you're from Florida, come out to California and see why we're addicted to California. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah, exactly. like travel within the country. Absolutely. For sure. Meet people from around like, I've done driven across the country several times. I did a cross country trip where I went to national parks, which was awesome. Stay in a bunch of like small towns and like Wyoming and Montana. And yeah, it was was awesome. But go international. Nice. But like the other thing is the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): same. ⁓ yeah. Shout out Russell Cleveland. He's out in Montana. Matt Conroy: like traveling abroad to other countries, like you learn that a lot of the things you've been told are our lies. And, you know, when you go to like, I was watching, I was watching Anthony Bourdain's, I think it was the parts unknown show when he goes to Iran. Um, and it's like people there, they just, yeah, there are people who hate Americans, but that's because we continually thumb our nose and try to tip our thumbs on the scale. But most people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: regardless of where they live, they just want to, they want a good life. They want to raise a family. They want to be able to send their kids to school without fear of, of persecution or being bombed or being killed. They want a good job. They want, they want to, you know, provide. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And they want to share their culture with you. They want you to see that they're good people. You should see, you should see when I released my Dubai video, I make travel videos here on the channel and I made a Dubai one. And I was getting messages saying, thank you so much for showing our country like this or showing our city like this. Because, because we as Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah! Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): as the United States citizens, we have a weird representation or understanding of what's happening everywhere else because they keep telling us that all these people are bad, but they're not. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah, we went, went to, did a Habitat for Humanity trip to Tijuana, Mexico, and we built... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Dude, you're like ⁓ a ⁓ good boy superhero. Matt Conroy: I mean, this was like 20 years ago, like, you know, like you're still taught that, you know, like Tijuana, like, you know, don't be wrong, it has its problems. Like obviously there's parts of it, like with the cartel and drugs that are involved and it has this problem. But like the narrative is that it's just everywhere is a shit hole. And that it's just a terrible place and you can't go because you'll die, you'll end up in jail. And it's like, we built homes for people. Like they made us lunch and dinner every day. And they were so excited that we were there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: And we're so grateful and kind. And I know that's not unique to there. Like it's around the country and, sorry, around the world that it's like that. And just getting out and realizing that we are stronger connected and better connected than we are separate is how we have to approach everything in life. And we have to think not just internally about how is this going to affect me or how is this good for me, how is this good for the benefit of the country? How is this good for the benefit of humanity? An example I always go back to is childcare. Again, I don't have kids. We talked about this earlier, but I want everyone to have access to healthcare. yeah, my direct impact is I pay a little more in taxes, but at the same time, my friends are happier, my friends are stressed. And if I can afford those taxes, that's fine. We have to stop thinking about how much we make and how much rather than... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: how much we get and how much we keep. Because right now we don't get to keep any and we don't get anything for the taxes we pay. So let's have a society where we make sure that people get what they pay for and then that they get to keep most of the money that they make. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's scientifically proven. The more educated a society is, the more crime goes down. It's scientifically proven. Matt Conroy: Yeah, look at Scandinavia. Look at Scandinavia, their crime rates are way lower than they are here. I think was Helsinki just went an entire year without a traffic fatality, which is crazy to think of. Yeah, I could have the city wrong, but it's one of the cabs. I think it's Helsinki, but either way, that also comes from, that's an educated policy, is people understanding that you have to make these investments in people. You have to design, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's bananas. Matt Conroy: your roads, your schools, your cities, your country in a way that benefits the entire population. Look, there is no single policy that will benefit, that will be a positive result for all 350 million Americans. I'm not stupid enough to realize that. Social Security, for example, if we lift the income cap, yes, it strengthens Social Security and guarantees the paycheck will be that Social Security will be around for generations to come, meaning we're not gonna cut benefits. But the downside is we do have to raise taxes on people making over $175,000 a year. Like that's the downside. So the question is, do we tax, you know, couple hundred thousand people to benefit 350 million? To me, that's an easy answer. Yes. You know, do we put a wealth tax on billionaires on roughly 1,100 people to benefit 350 million Americans? Yes. So we have to just stop thinking of my individual impact, but what is the societal impact, you know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right, right. And again, if you have these delusions of grandeur that make you think you're gonna become a billionaire, there's a certain degree of millionaire that you're gonna find is very comfortable. I'm not there yet. So don't go thinking that I'm talking out of experience. I don't, but I have been witness to... Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah. Me neither. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): folks that have nothing but friction in life and I have had exposure to people who have had no friction in life at all. There is a level at which You're fine. You're fine. There's a certain level of millionaire that it doesn't matter if you have 10 more million or 30 more million, your day is going to look the same. Matt Conroy: Yes. Oh yeah, was, so after my hockey game the other night, we were just, the rink has a bar and we were just hanging out and I was talking to one of my teammates and he was like, yeah, he's like, know, billionaires already pay their fair share in taxes. I said, no, they don't. And here's why. And I went through a couple of reasons and I said, look, here's the question you have to ask yourself. I was like, what do you think around the city needs improvement? Like roads, schools, hospitals? He's like, yeah, everything. I'm like, I agree. Everything needs improvement. Is it beneficial to raise taxes on 1,100 people, regardless of how you feel about it, to benefit 350 million people? And he's like, yes. I said, then there's your answer. I said, that's it right there. That's the answer to the question. We have to tax these people because hoarding this amount of wealth, and there's only so much money that goes around. we're not gonna continue to print money, because we shouldn't, because that will lead to inflation and huge economic problems down the road, we have to take... finite money that we currently have available and we have to tax the wealthy so they don't hoard it to benefit everyone who lives in this country. And that's the easiest way that we need to start selling it to people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): those folks with all that money, it's a game to them. You have to understand that. It's a game of monopoly. It's a game of monopoly. And they know that people that don't have money will do just about anything to even just be in the same room. Matt Conroy: ⁓ yeah. Yep. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And those folks know that they will be able to manipulate because of the money and power that comes with it. And then, you you getting access to that, to that person or that group of people. That's why you see a lot of these really dirty stories that are happening. Matt Conroy: Yeah, like look at Nancy Pelosi. even before she went into Congress, like she was wealthy, like her and her husband made their money elsewhere, like through work, through real estate, like whatever exactly they got it from. And it's like, yeah, you worked hard, you earned your money. Like, sure, you absolutely should be able to keep that. But you're pushing 83 or 84 now, and I know she's retiring, but you used your position to continue to enrich yourself for years while refusing to pass policies. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 100%. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: that benefit all Americans. Look, if you had just retired or just not even retired, but just never gotten into politics and you are worth say $50 million, you'd still be living a pretty good life. You don't need to be worth $100 million. Like at what point is enough enough, you know, and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Right. And at what point is enough enough and for you to then go into politics so you could put your fingers on the scale even more. Matt Conroy: Yeah, yeah. And it's everyone like again, she was in a leadership position and she's the extreme example. They have stock trackers after her like, know, which is she's the goat. She's the she's the goat of insider trading, you know. So you just sort of describe it. Because everyone else, everyone else who's richer than her goes to jail. But because she's in Congress, it's not technically insider trading and she's good with anyway, that's besides the point. But ⁓ yeah, it's just like those are the things that we talked about and someone Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. She's the easy one to point at because everybody... Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: you someone's like, talked about like, Oh, because my my tax plan calls for 25 % wealth tax on, you know, over 100 billion, or like, this is socialism. I was like, if you think having someone worth 83 billion after taxes is socialism, you need a new definition for socialism, you know, and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): For real, and you need to stop paying attention to whatever goofy channel you're paying attention to. ⁓ Matt Conroy: Yeah, and it's, you know, and you, like as you get older, you start to realize like, money doesn't matter. I mean, it does, like it's important, but it's important for you to live. I apologize if that came out wrong, but it's not, it shouldn't be the most important thing. Like, yes, it should matter that you have to pay your bills and you have to make money to, you know, live the life you want. I got it, like that's. but it shouldn't be the thing that drives you and it's never gonna be the thing that gives you happiness because you're always just gonna keep chasing it more and more and more. And that is one of the problems with a capitalist society that doesn't really have any guardrails is the people who have already captured the wealth and captured politics and captured our government just want more when realistically they have enough. If someone asked me, it's like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: And what would you do you have $50 million? And I said, honestly, I would just be funding grassroots candidates, people who wanna fight for the change that I wanna fight. Like imagine you have the money to kind of live your life and not have to worry about stuff financially. But, know, because again, like if you have $50 million, like we're talking about universal childcare, paid family leave, things like that, $50 million makes up for that, like covers that for someone. So you're talking about, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're gonna get that money right back. Matt Conroy: You know, like, it's okay, whatever I spend on this, I'm going to get it back in interest, you know, type of thing. sure, I'm to pay more in taxes to ensure that people have a good life. That's, that's the problem that with, with our society is it's kind of just created a me me me type of thing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, and folks like the current administration just continue to make that argument worse, worse. Matt Conroy: Democrats haven't helped themselves. Democrats have not helped themselves. Look, look at the end of Joe Biden. It was a me, me, me thing. He stayed in it for ego purposes. It wasn't necessarily money. It was power. It was ego. Like it was 100 % ego. And to the Democratic party, to the non, like members of the House, members of the Senate, who didn't say anything ahead of him retiring, like that is where it didn't have the courage to speak up. Look, we all knew Joe Biden was too old, even when he ran in 2020. We're like, ⁓ God, please win. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: please win because we cannot deal with Donald Trump for four more years. And thank God he won. But he immediately slow walked in. You're like, okay, he's trying to get back to a pre Donald Trump thing. Like he still mentally thinks that that happens. And slow walk to January 6th charges, it never happened. Merrick Garland is the DOJ. The fact that that wasn't referred right away. Like Brazil had Bolsonaro in jail within two years. Donald Trump should be in jail for the rest of his life for trying to violently overthrow the government. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: Democrats immediately should have moved to expel every single member of Congress and the Senate who voted to overthrow the elections as traitors to the United States. Like that is 100 % what they should have done. And they didn't do that. And then Joe Biden, his other two things, number one, in 2019 to staff, he said, I'm gonna be a one-term president. Well, no one ever held him to that. Immediately when he was elected, should have said, the Democratic party should have been like, look, you said you're a one-term president. We agree, you're 78 years old. We can't have you running as an 82 year old. So here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna back you through the midterms, everything. No one's gonna speak out, no one's gonna do anything. We are in line with you, we are pushing your agenda. The moment the midterms happen, you're gonna come out the next day and you're gonna say, I'm stepping down, I'm not running for reelection. And then we now have two years to kind of like, people will break, people will criticize you, you have to have thick skin and deal with it. But we need to usher in the next generation of this party. That's number two. And then number three, His agenda wasn't even that great. Look, I don't disagree with, you know, investing in infrastructure and, but they traded away lot of the stuff on the Inflation Reduction Act that it didn't really have the impact that they had hoped and prices continued to go up and then they ignored people. The number one thing that they needed to go through was universal healthcare and they couldn't do it. The number one, then they needed to go on to raising minimum wage. Couldn't do that. So while I appreciate him defeating Donald Trump, like he clearly didn't have the political power. that we thought he had, because we couldn't get those passed while holding the House and the Senate and the presidency. And we still didn't have the courage to stand up and say, okay, we just saw someone who's politically weak, who didn't get accomplished what he wanted to, who slow walked the charges against Donald Trump. And we never spoke up and said, hey, you got to step aside because that's really what we should have done. And now we are directly in this mess because of the Democrats complacency and refusal to understand what was going on. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then we got him anyway. And then we got Trump anyway. And even Madder. He's even Madder. I wonder if all of this stuff would have happened if it would have just been Donald Trump won and he ran his eight years. Matt Conroy: I know, I know, it's... Yeah, ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Because this time he had that timeout so he can set up all his dominoes the way he wanted to. That's why he went and got all his crooks from Florida. Matt Conroy: Yeah, I think, I wonder that too. Like they wouldn't have time to have reset for project 2025 and write a full manual. Like yes, they would have been so evil and so vindictive and whatever, but a lot of the people that we see in the, I mean, let's just say he won. Democrats control the house and control the Senate. Well, now the investigative authorities are even greater. So we can look into, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Matt Conroy: how he handled the military, he, you know, influence, yeah, they would still be investigating, you know, collusion with Russia or whatever it may be. And it's like, you know, who knows what comes out of it legislatively, but, you know, if we get through it in 2024, it's been eight years of a Republican, he's done nothing to make our lives better. Not to mention millions of people more probably would have died from COVID, which is something we forget. So that is, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's true. That's true. Matt Conroy: you know, that is, it's a will never know. But we're here now and we hope that our elected officials would do something, but they clearly haven't, so. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): haven't and that's that's the heartbreaking part of it. Matt Conroy: Yeah, it's like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): is we're begging you to do something. They literally put sick to ice, they sick to military on people that look like me and darker. Matt Conroy: So the E- Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's despicable. It's disgusting what they are doing in that, like we have heat. So with, with, with Iran, like, let's use that, for example, like it's in another illegal invasion and illegal bombing of a country. did it in Venezuela. He's doing it now again in Iran, like he's committing war crimes again, too. So, and then we have democratic senators who are calling it the Ayatollah protection act. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: by limiting his powers. Look, if you think we should go to war with Iran, I don't, I do not. But put your vote on the line. elected, like you're in Congress. You hold, like it is your constitutional duty to give the president the power to declare war, but vote on it. Put your name with your vote. Don't just hide behind some vague statement or some bullshit PR statement like that. And that's like, just goes to show that they don't. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Matt Conroy: understand and they don't get what we're up against. Another example is like the state of the union. Look, I appreciate Al Green standing up and holding the sign and fighting back. And I kind of wish he was like 30 years younger because he would be like, all right, that's our leader. That's the fight we need, you know? ⁓ But think about like having some political instinct. How hasn't the Democratic Party realized, hey, you know, it would be great. Donald Trump comes in. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Matt Conroy: We're all sitting there. We don't clap. We don't do anything. We don't even stand for him. Or if we do stand because he's the president, we're showing respect to the office. We don't even clap. We just stand there with our, with everyone's arms crossed. The moment he goes to speak and say his first words, every single member of the democratic party puts a picture of either Jeffrey Epstein, one of his survivors, something like that on their chair and walks out. And now you have a half empty chamber. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Hmm. Matt Conroy: with all of these photos just staring them in the face. Think about how enraged that would make Donald Trump and the visual, the images that the press would be able to put out there. Again, it's completely a political victory or a political moment, but do that, do that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And don't think and let's not forget he did that. Didn't he? He brought he brought who he was trying to make a point against. Was it Clinton? Yeah, because he wasn't he running against Hillary and he put like the front row. The front row was a bunch of women that were accusing Clinton or something like that. Matt Conroy: 16. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thing is too is that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So it's not like it's a new idea. Matt Conroy: Yeah, and it would just infuriate him because then he can see it's just all these photos of him. Everyone puts a photo of him in Epstein right there. And it's just then, you know, again, it's just like these are little political victories. Like, again, he's clearly trying to change the narrative by bombing Iran and then he's going to go move on to Cuba and he's going to continue to do this. So we're distracted. But that makes the State of the Union just simply about Jeffrey Epstein and keeps it on the fact that the president is a pedophile. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Matt Conroy: and is covering up for him and his billionaire buddies. And that, again, just goes to show, it's like, hey man, you don't get it. You literally don't get it. And this may be the millennial or someone who grew up with the internet speaking. It's like, you have to win the battle on the internet. And 65, 70 year olds who do not know what a PDF is or can't attach a PDF aren't gonna be the ones who do it.