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CJP #33: Loren Colin (CA-34) · Coconut Justice

• speaker-0: Hey, what's good? Warren Collins is a Southern California native that has lived in the Los Angeles area for over 30 years and has been involved in LA politics for most of that time. He attended UCLA and studied history and communication studies and eventually became a creative director at an experiential agency. Now he's running for the US House of Representatives for California's 34th district, which covers much of the LA area. This is my conversation with Lauren Collin. 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. All right, everybody. I'm excited for this one because I love LA like the song says, I love LA. So we're going to talk to Lauren Collin about running for office in Los Angeles. How's it going, Lauren? speaker-1: It's going really well. I appreciate you having me here, Carlos. Thank you. speaker-0: How's LA treating you? speaker-1: ⁓ it's beautiful. You know, we just went from ⁓ ten days of rain early in the year to eighty degrees and now it's sixty-five and we're gonna get some drizzle tomorrow. But it's always a beautiful day in LA. We prefer if there's no ice in LA. There's a little bit of it going around today, but we're working to melt it as ⁓ quickly as possible and get it get it the heck out of here. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Were you have you been to any of the protests and stuff where ice and and the military and all those folks they show up? speaker-1: I was at the very first one on June 8th, which is also the very first time I ever tasted tear gas ⁓ as I was walking ⁓ down towards the Metropolitan Detention Center. So California 34, where I'm running to represent, is pretty much when you see LA in the news, especially when it comes to ⁓ ICE enforcement and stuff happening downtown, that is right here in my district, or not my district, but this lovely district of California 34, ⁓ our district. But it's of the people, it's the people's district here in 34. And that's kind of what we need, right? Because basically the guy who's here right now ⁓ treats it like his personal, you know, fiefdom. And we don't need a personal fiefdom. We need representative and we need voice. ⁓ so yeah, the very first time, ⁓ said it was on June 8th, they'd come in on that Friday, and ⁓ two days later there were marches already happening and marched with a whole bunch of people from Mariachi Plaza over First Street. ⁓ down in front of ⁓ the metropolitan ⁓ detention center, been to a few other protests since then. ⁓ it's really impressive seeing the people in the streets. But I also think there's this idea that ICE left LA. They never left LA. They've been here since June sixth, ⁓ a little bit quieter except for today when there was a shooting in Compton. speaker-0: I shot someone in copter. speaker-1: They shot through someone's back window as they were driving away. speaker-0: haven't seen anything about it at all in the media. speaker-1: It's really bad. Yeah. ⁓ so they're just an out-of-control menace here and everywhere. ⁓ you know, they're definitely affecting our neighborhoods. Pretty much if you go outside, you can tell just foot traffic's down 15, 20, 25 percent everywhere, especially in the more ⁓ immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, but even in the ones that aren't, I mean again, like LA's. speaker-0: I argue, I argue LA is a immigrant neighborhood. speaker-1: It is. That's what I was just gonna say. I mean, basically it's hard. Yeah, it's it's everywhere. and so it's just it's sort of depressing, you know. But it's also the weird thing about fascism is how you still sort of live your life, the daily life, right? It's just not as fun, not as exciting, not as busy. ⁓ and also there's a lot of real people hurting. Like I have friends and family, not family, sorry, I have friends who are hurting. ⁓ and it that kind of just pisses you off. So we're fighting. For them, we're fighting just for human dignity and decency and to, you know, get everyone back in the streets of LA and getting back to how our lives were. Yeah. Even better. speaker-0: Yeah, I agree. Because I'll be honest with you. I've tried to live in LA a couple of times, and I think it's just bad timing. What I tell people is if you plan on moving to LA, find your clique and stick with them. I've never really been able to find my clique, right? So I struggle a little bit. speaker-1: It's one of those things I think if you if you get here, if you make it like your seven year mark, I think then people find it home. ⁓ you know, I ⁓ I I always say because I was b born here in LA County ⁓ and lived in Southern California my whole life. ⁓ but like you said, it's not just LA is a place of immigrants. I mean, to me, if someone came from even one of the other 49 states, they were just as much of an immigrant as someone from Mexico. And again, honestly, like we're in Mexico and even that's you know speaker-0: Yeah, for real. Yeah. speaker-1: If we go back before then, it was Spain. If we go back before then, there were no colonials here, right? There was just people who'd been here for 10,000 years. I do think that LA in many ways is a mindset. And that's what makes it so beautiful is that w we recognize that we're not perfect and we've changed a lot over the last 30 years. but I think seeing Los Angeles not just become a melting pot, but also truly a minority, majority city. Right. ⁓ where Latinos make up the the largest percent of the population. And they're also not a monolith. but just that change is what a lot of white America is afraid of. They think they think that they're gonna get replaced versus no one's replacing anybody here. We're just all trying to get along and live. That's beautiful. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, LA is a wonderful representation of. How can I say this? Non-white influenced metropolis that works. For the most part, we're gonna get to some of the deficiencies here in a little bit. But you can't have this many people and not have bumps on the road. It's just impossible. speaker-1: Yeah. And I think what's also magical about us is that we recognize that we're honest about it. We don't always get to the solutions quickly. ⁓ we still are sort of a one-party state and that has its own issues, make sometimes makes the bumps bigger than they need to be. ⁓ but I think there's an honesty at least in the discussion of what we have to fix. We don't necessarily fix it as quickly as possible as we should. And Part of it's not necessarily agreeing on what the solution is. ⁓ yeah, even just between homeowners and renters. But by and large, people it it's hard to not be happy when it's, you know, 72 and sunny 330 days out of the year. speaker-0: I tell you if you like golf. When I lived down there, it was me and golf. Me and my golf clubs went everywhere. Yeah, it's a wonderful spot out there. ⁓ How was it? What was it like growing up in LA? Not to be too ageist, but when did you grow up and where did you grow up? speaker-1: Nice. Well, tomorrow I'm fifty, so speaker-0: ⁓ nice. you. Nice. Bye 40s. This is where this I'm 53. So I'm kind of I'm I'm I'm excited for you because this is where your I just don't give a fuck kicks in. speaker-1: Yeah, that's the end. Absolutely. No, and I'm excited to be spending the last ⁓ part of the last six hours of my 40s here with you. So this is awesome. ⁓ thank you. I appreciate it. so yeah, ⁓ I grew up in South Orange County in Laguna Hills Michigan, but I was actually born in Clover City for a whole night. Yeah, it was the perfect place to grow up and the perfect place to not go back. ⁓ although my parents are still there and my brother still lives there. And the 55 miles between here and South Orange County. speaker-0: Happy birthday. ⁓ speaker-1: is just far enough. And there's like 10 million people in between us. ⁓ and then so, but my father grew up in Van Nuys. My grandparents ⁓ and my cousins on that side of the family all lived up here in the valley. Some of my earliest memories are just down the hill from me in the district. ⁓ we have this famous ⁓ sandwich shop called Philippe's that is one of the two that claims to have developed ⁓ or invented the French tip sandwich. And I remember like one of my earliest memories, like five or six years old. ⁓ visiting my grandmother. ⁓ and she took me there and then we went to like a Dodgers game. And my other grandmother, because it's technically it's in Chinatown. ⁓ also, my other grandmother loved this place called Monkeys, that's long gone. ⁓ they had the old school, you know, ⁓ lobsters in the tank and all that. And we come up here for for Chinese food. And then for the last 30 years, I've actually lived in the city, starting when I went to UCLA, ⁓ which was just over 30 years ago starting there. ⁓ and then slowly, like many people. made my way from ⁓ the west side, further and further east, ⁓ met my ex. speaker-0: And it's, it's a different world. People don't understand. ⁓ yeah. Don't understand East and West LA. Like it's a thing. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, no, I was just in West LA ⁓ two days ago. I'm like, what am I doing over here? speaker-0: Yeah, ⁓ the closer to the water you get, the more beachy, the more, you know, kind of dude. Like people from Florida are like, what? Yes. The closer to the ocean is more dude. And the further East you go, it's a little more professional, a little more, you know, business oriented film. speaker-1: We're in the heart of it here. ⁓ California 34 and where I live. So I live just north ⁓ west of downtown, ⁓ right next to Dodger Stadium. ⁓ California 34 is actually the most compact ⁓ district outside of New York City because between East LA and Boyle Heights, downtown and Koreatown, those are the three most densely populated areas in the country outside of Manhattan. yeah, and it's just there's I speaker-0: wild. speaker-1: I am more of an introvert, but I'm that type of introvert that feeds off the energy of people. So I just I'm always excited to to be here. ⁓ and just and live here and it's fascinating. You go from neighborhood to neighborhood, block to block, and you know that the the scene changes, the food changes, but the people are great everywhere. So that's what's just really cool about being here. speaker-0: And that's something about LA that I always appreciate. everything from Diddy Reese to Mommy Burger. There was a I can't remember the name. There was a place it was a vegetarian sushi place. That place is amazing that the food out there is bonkers. And they have everything. It's not just Mexican food. speaker-1: Yeah. No, it is the culinary delights. Yeah. I actually think, you know, again, I'm I'm biased, but I think California 34 has the best food in the whole city. I mean, there's obviously spots outside of it, but between things are downtown in the arts district, ⁓ some of the spots in East LA, ⁓ Chinatown, which is some of my favorite ⁓ places, it's just like we do it right. And people are always experimenting too. It's not, you know, there's obviously the speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: the old standards. ⁓ but lots of new places keep popping up. And just a lot like what it means to live in Los Angeles. you get to try new things, you get to be different. You don't have to be the same person you were every day. And you can change, you don't have to change, but you're you're free to experiment here. Which again, I think is something that a lot of the rest of the country is appalled by. They want they they want ⁓ everyone to to fit in this box. They want everyone to conform. And in LA conform Yeah. In LA conformity is an option, but you speaker-0: Mark yeah Yeah, yeah, that's what I like. And I had someone speak similarly about San Francisco, that you have the freedom to explore, to see. And it's weird how people who pound their chest about freedom don't let you have the freedom it takes to figure out your best self. speaker-1: Yep, absolutely. Yeah. And it's kind of scary. And that's part of honestly why I'm running is that to combat that. Again, if you don't want to change and you want to be in a box and you want to live like that, you are free to live like that. But where you've broken the idea of liberty and even just personal dignity is when you say I have to live in your box. Dignity is about each and every single one of us having that chance to figure out who we are and to make mistakes. And to fix them and to try new things. And speaker-0: a support system that's not going to let you end up going homeless and hungry and all fucked up. speaker-1: Absolutely. And I absolutely to me there's two parts to that. One is the idea is government does not exist, or a government of free people does not exist to protect ⁓ society from the individual. A government of free people exists to protect the individual from society. And then I agree with what you said, Carlos. The other part of that is that individual, in order for them to live their freest and their best, we just need certain things. We need housing. We need healthcare. We need education. And those are the things that should be available to all of us at some minimum standard. If you want more, the beauty of America is go get more. But the beauty of humanity is we need to at least take care of each other. And our government has the role of doing that. And to me, that's actually a what a liberal government does. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ How do we pay for all that though? speaker-1: I'm glad you asked. we tax the ultra wealthy to pay their fair share because they don't. ⁓ I think you can see it over my shoulder is ⁓ my my copy of ⁓ The Wealth of Nations. ⁓ the it we get propagandized to saying, like, you know, the Adam Smith was all about the invisible hand and that government shouldn't have any role. No, he was very clear that the Number one thing that will interfere with human happiness, which as utilitarian or ⁓ which is what he was concerned with, right? Human happiness is monopolies and monopolies and the government joining together in power and keeping everyone down. He recognized that government should have a light role, but that doesn't mean no role. And that light role includes making sure that all markets are competitive. That role includes making sure that the ultra-wealthy, in his own words, not only pay their fair share, but more than their fair share. And here in the United States, we the people, because we have elected this, we have allowed it. Rand corporation, not exactly your liberal or leftist or Marxist bastion. Rand has said in the last 45 years since Reaganomics trickled down, whatever you want to call it, neoliberalism. ⁓ as it happened we've sent between the the the bottom and the middle have sent between 50 and 80 trillion dollars of our wealth to the top but we've allowed them to steal it because we elect the representatives that write the tax code i am running to rewrite the tax code to throw away what we have and basically just start over i'm gonna imagine carlos you earn a wage i earn a wage and that wage is almost fully taxed and there's no way to hide it. But if you are a hundred millionaire or a billionaire, you have tax shelters and trusts. And even if you didn't have those, you have special rates on inheritance and capital gains and loans against stock. It's just time to get rid of all of it. And one of the things I've been enjoying, I I don't think we've talked much about I'm running as an independent, but I'm researching other independents as we're trying to kind of grow our movement. And you know, I just came across this guy who total libertarian. And two parts of his platform are one is if you're here for on January 1st, 2026, we just have to make you give you legal status. We have to fix this. I'm like, that's awesome. And this other thing was basically my exact same tax code, right? Which is just tax every dollar, a dollar of inheritance, a dollar of capital gains, a dollar that a billionaire takes of loans against their stock, that then they don't pay back the the buy, borrow, die. No different than a loan, or sorry, it's no different than a dollar of our wages. Just tax all of it the exact same. ⁓ I so I don't promise that our taxes will go down, but I do promise that the taxes of the ultra-wealthy will go up just to be the same percentage of their wealth that you and I pay in ours. It's just fair and common sense. Yeah. So that's how we start to pay for it. ⁓ the other thing we do, just real quick, is Congress just passed. Or is about to finish finalizing, you know, a trillion dollars in military spending. That includes Jimmy Gomez, who's the Democrat, supposedly progressive that represents us. He voted yes on a $913 billion military ⁓ bill when the government was already blowing up ships in the Caribbean and ⁓ Pacific Ocean and murdering brown people, innocent brown people. And our guy votes yes for that. It doesn't help anyone in California 34. It doesn't help anyone in California. It doesn't help anyone in this nation. So a budget is also a moral document. And our moral document looks like the only thing we care about is military and police. I think that's speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, that's, I can go on and on. Basically, isn't it weird how we never have money for books and education, but we have plenty for cameras and over policing. No problem at all. speaker-1: It's obscene. ⁓ and that's part of it's it's yeah. We have to we have to rethink what we want from our government, which actually starts like, what do we want for ourselves? What is when we talk about safety or security or public safety, is that I'm really afraid of crime, or I just want to be able to walk down the street in peace. Because if it's or it could be both, but you know, here in Los Angeles LAPD responds to 60 to 65% of their calls are nonviolent individual people having usually some sort of mental breakdown. There's not a property crime happening, no one's been shot, right? ⁓ we send the wrong people. And then because we've sent the wrong people, and I'm not disparaging LAPD, we're sending them to do things that they shouldn't be doing. So then they hurt someone in a response to something they should have never been at. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And now, you know, the city of LA is on the hook for already a quarter of a billion dollars. And probably after everything that went down over the summer, we're probably looking at a half five hundred billion dollars of ⁓ outlays that the city's gonna have to pay because we send the police to do the wrong things when we know the solutions. There's this thing called, and maybe you've heard of it, ⁓ unarmed model of crisis response, which works and it costs nothing. I mean, not nothing compared to the police, it costs nothing. Yeah. ⁓ and so I don't think we should reduce the LAPD, but it shouldn't grow. They should not get more money, they shouldn't get more overtime. But while we keep them at the same size, we should be fully funding things like ⁓ the unarmed model of crisis response, which is why I'm running to Congress to get us the money to do that. As we again we think of our budget as a moral document, that's the type of stuff that we should be doing with our money. speaker-0: Yeah, this money bit. I would like to hear more ideas on how we're going to, we can put money where it needs to be, but we can't necessarily trust the people who have the money to do the job that they're supposed to be doing, right? Perfect example, we've put so much money towards homelessness, but yet it's skyrocketed. How are we going to make sure that the money that's designated for a certain thing is going to actually get to address that thing? speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ I think part of it is saying it's not just one thing, right? It's like homelessness isn't just homelessness. Homelessness is because we don't have health care for all. Homelessness is because we don't have homes, enough homes just for people to live in, right? Homelessness is because we have this individualistic idea, like if you're on the streets, you did something, versus having the cultural idea that we all need to support each other. So to me, that's never just one thing. So how do we like fix homelessness? Well, we make sure that we pass taxpayer public taxpayer funded public health care that covers every single American. We copy Germany and Japan. We can do better than Medicare for all. We can certainly do better than private health insurance. Germany and Japan. ⁓ Germany has a population of 80 million Japan. So shrinking is down to like 125 million. They spend one third less per person for their population on healthcare from cradle to grave. Time you're born to the time you die. And unlike us, who's the 32nd out of the 32 rich nations in results, they're the top two nations in the outcomes. So they spend a third less and they get the best results. Where markets work, markets make sense. There's no More more, I guess, more specifically, markets work where the profit motive doesn't negate the social motive. Cars, computers, phones, bottled water. Let's have markets for those. But you cannot have a market for healthcare because the healthcare companies, the for-profit healthcare companies, only make money when we give them our money and then we die. speaker-0: Yeah, or we give them the money and for me, I like to live ⁓ somewhat of a healthy life. So I feel like health insurance is kind of like a ripoff for me. speaker-1: It is. ⁓ that you shouldn't have it, but again. So well, in Germany and Japan, they every worker, unless you're self employed or super rich, every worker pays eight percent of their income of their wage, and then their company pays eight percent of their wage. That's it. That eight percent, and this is what's fun about like going. I had this conversation with a guy in East LA, and he's like, I understand. That eight percent he was telling me, I wasn't even asking him or telling him, but he's like, I know that eight percent is a lot less than when I have to pay for premium and deductible and co-pay and co insurance. Coinsurance, and then they could still deny me care. I could still go bankrupt, right? No one goes bankrupt in any wealthy country for medical debt, except for the United States, and it's obscene. I don't care that there's a CEO of Aetna or CVS. They don't need to live. I mean, they don't need to die. They don't need to exist as the CEO of that company, right? Like that doesn't that doesn't mean anything to me that they make a hundred million dollars. ⁓ so we know there are models in a in America, like it has to be American, American exceptionalism. Cool, let's call it Americare. Let's just copy Germany and Japan. But that's like back to your homelessness as a speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: I I believe that people know how to spend the money the best. So I would actually in a proposed ⁓ my proposal is you actually get rid of things like SNAP, you get rid of all the homeless services, you just do direct payments. We're spending in Los Angeles and probably everywhere in the state of California, about forty thousand dollars per homeless person per year. There's 45,000 homeless just in the city of LA. If we just spent the billion dollars that we're spending now and speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: gave them cash and it ha and healthcare, right? Yeah. And they figured out how to feed themselves and where to live on their own. And we just solved half the problem. We just solved half the problem for the same money we're spending, solving none of the problem. speaker-0: Yeah, and I want to say I read something years ago. I think it was Utah that. Cried to eliminate homelessness and they did something a lot similar to what you're hinting towards where they put all the homeless people in apartments or whatever and they gave them a social worker. And the social workers were able to, you know, some some homeless people are there because of. mental issues, but there's a lot of them that just ran out of money. And getting those folks back up on their feet would be the focus. And obviously, if you have mental issues, we can address that with different therapists and stuff like that. But there are people willing to do the work if you just gave them a salary. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And then the homeless people themselves, you give them a little boost. It's not. speaker-1: Yeah, and I don't I'm not even comfortable saying it's a boost, it's the bare minimum that we owe each other. And I think it actually starts to lay the groundwork for a UBI ⁓ for universal basic income. And it should start with them because they're in the most need. But ultimately there should be an America dividend, right? The the funny thing about Alaska, right? All these like, ⁓ we're so independent, blah blah Texas and Alaska, their states have speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: The two highest royalties on oil extraction in the country. The United States on federal land on our leases has the lowest, right? Compared to even any state. ⁓ Alaska pays out a dividend to the people of its country of the state. The United States should pay out a dividend to the American people from the money it raises by taxing corporations and by taxing the ultra rich. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And that's how you get to a UBI. And everything should be a direct payment. It's and it should be universal. Everyone should be covered for healthcare. speaker-0: And that would actually help with the fraud and stuff that we were talking about earlier. speaker-1: Yes, yeah. speaker-0: That makes sense. speaker-1: Yes, there's no the this idea of everything in the United States is always punitive. We have to means test this, we have to do that. No, what's fair is universal. Again, if we're gonna we should tax every dollar the same, whatever that base of goods that the country offers needs to be available to everyone. And then if you want more, if you want a private doctor or a private hospital, you want six mansions, you want the fancy car, then go. speaker-0: Yeah. Get it. Work a little bit more. Yeah. speaker-1: Absolutely. And we're not saying people shouldn't not work. What we know from UBI where it's been done is people actually are more entrepreneurial. They take more because they know that their minimum needs are going to be met. And it's ultimately cheaper. But we don't think about cheap or we don't think about efficiency, the most cost effective. We think about profit. So everything I just said would take away profit. From private corporations. But those private corporations have the government creating a market for them that shouldn't exist. speaker-0: Yeah, we have to do things differently. We can't continue to bitch and complain that nothing changes, but that no one wants to do anything differently. speaker-1: And yeah, and and yeah, like I I think what one of my fun ⁓ this is not an official proposal, but maybe it gains traction. At the end of every year, we should have our Billionaire of the Year award. You made the most money. Congratulations. Here's your medal. And we have a big electronic billboard. And we said, This is how much money you made. Here's your medal. Now press the button and we'll watch speaker-0: put a little ticker on the bottom to have that because you know they like that shit. speaker-1: And then we'll then we'll watch it go you they're what they have to pay into the federal treasury. We'll watch it tick down and the federal treasury tick up. Well, you've done your patriotic duty. Congratulations. We hope to see you here next year and maybe you'll be the billionaire of the year again. Like that's we we can celebrate wealth and success, but what we can't speaker-0: You know, I said Kmart. You know what mean? You go to Kmart, you see the employee of the month, you Yeah. speaker-1: Yes. Exactly. ⁓ so that's the type of stuff like I I think because you you know, you said you're you're just a few years older than me. I think one of the worst things that ever happened to America happened when we were young, which was in I can't remember Wall Street, the movie came out in '86 or '87. And the line greed is good. That was supposed to be a negative. You were supposed to come away with that going, no, greed is evil, but instead what we got was speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: No, greed is good. And this country turned vice into virtue. And I think that's really been our great downfall. And no, greed is not good. Greed is human and you can't outlaw it, but we can certainly tax it and fix its most negative effects on people. speaker-0: 100%. 100%. There should be no reason why we have a country that has so many rich dudes that are all so smart and they know all this wonderful shit. But yet we have unlimited amounts of homeless people. That doesn't make sense. You're not that smart. You're not that smart if you made all that money and you've destroyed society on the way. speaker-1: Yes. And this idea, you know, the bootstraps idea is just false. also kind of racist, but none of our there's two parts. Of the we're up to like almost a thousand billionaires now in this country. Fully 500 of them simply inherited their money. Right. And we also know the likes of that's why we just need to tax their inheritance the same way we tax our wealth. speaker-0: This is me off so much. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, the wages simple, right? And again, they can have it their whole life. They can keep it all in in to i in stock and never spend it. But the second they die and that stock is transferred to an heir, that's when it gets taxed. And that's when we get our money. I don't care what the individual has, but once they die, you don't take it with you, man. Yeah. It's double taxed. Like, no, no, we're not. speaker-0: And if and if you're more on the conservative side listening to this conversation, I know money people That think that this is a fair way of doing things You get to play the game at the end of the game. You cash your chips. That's it. That's all nothing else You can set up your kids with good education and all that stuff But this whole you're gonna take my whole kingdom and and live rent free and tax free and all this other stuff. That's horseshit. Yep. That's horseshit. Your kids, your kids are already spoiled. Their kids are already, you know, it's not. Yeah. I know a lot of money people that think that inheritance tax should be already, you know, it should be a thing. speaker-1: And it was again historically when the country was founded, it was like people talk about like let's go back to the founding. Like, what parts? Because you always seem selective. The parts you want always seem to be some sort of chattel slavery and racism and racial hierarchy, but you don't ever want to do the parts where what was the original immigration law in this country? Yeah. There was none. There was none. There was a law about what it took to be a citizen as early as 1799 or 1789, like right after the First Congress, I think it was 1799. So it's like a few congresses in. There was not an immigration policy until the 1880s, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act, because of course it had to be racist, right? So of course what part of original is what part of the original country do you want? Because the original country had it actually didn't have technically inheritance taxes because most of our most The early country, the early United States made its money for the federal treasury by selling the stolen land. So and as you did manifest destiny, you just got more and more land to sell. ⁓ so it was that and excise taxes. ⁓ those taxes on like booze and stuff like that. Sure. ⁓ but once those started to run low and the government was like, ⁓ we can't just keep selling land for money, ⁓ speaker-0: That's crazy. speaker-1: Then some of the first taxes were inheritance taxes and they were high. Yeah. And so again, it's like people, especially I think white people have this idea of, you know, this is my country, I built it, and it's mine in per in perpetuity, perpetuity. And it's just not like that's you have a myth, and we have to destroy that that myth. speaker-0: Yeah, because I'm sorry, you can't in one breath say, ⁓ it was my people that did all of this stuff and we created the country. But then you're like, I wasn't there when slavery was there. So why do I have to pay the price? You can't, you either take it all or you take none. speaker-1: I mean, how so we know what chattel slavery was, we know what it did to Africans and you know and and black people live with what that has meant for the last four hundred years. We've never reached the ideals of this country. But even that Chinese Exclusion Act, they didn't pass it until after the the Chinese had built the Western Railroad. Yeah. speaker-0: ⁓ Yeah, cool, that's done. Go home. speaker-1: And so, you know, this one of the things that I think greatly upsets, and this is like me getting upset, is how well the right uses this idea of identity politics and religion to cover up their worst, the worst of the worst. The truth of the matter is all politics are identity politics. But we still see time and time again that just enough As as there's still a majority of white Americans, just enough of that majority of white Americans vote for these policies that negatively affect them, like that makes them less well off, materially makes them less well off. But because there's the possibility that a black person or a brown person or a woman or someone else might get something, they're like, No, I'd rather, I'd rather not have it. We have to get past that, and we have to get past it by addressing it. And yes, all politics is identity politics, but it's gonna take white people to become anti-racist and to get in the face of the other white people and say, enough's enough. Just enough's enough. And again, I think we're seeing it. I mean, we're at an inflection point right now, obviously, as you know, 70, sorry, I think it's 85 to 90 percent of all of the people that ISIS picked up are brown. Not from Russia. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: But not from South Africa. ⁓ they are speaker-0: listening to this conversation. Folks listening to this conversation. I know a lot of Polish folks in Chicago that aren't here legally. From what I understand in North Manhattan, there's a bunch of illegal Russians. We don't see ice jacking those guys up. We see them shooting, we see them shooting lesbians, mothers and, and And that wasn't even the first shooting. A handful of first shootings were black and brown people. speaker-1: Yep. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. The Project Twenty Twenty Five. Well, Project Twenty Twenty Five is the end in many ways of this forty plus year, some could even say eighty year or a hundred and sixty year effort to basically reestablish, you know, just complete racial hierarchy. It's they're not joking when they say they want to deport a hundred million people. speaker-0: Next year! speaker-1: Well, there's sixty million Latinos and there's forty million black Americans. Yeah. ⁓ that's the hundred million that they're talking about. And then if you're white, you only get to stay and be free if you do what the regime says. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Like the the the white people have this ⁓ a they're bad at history, so they don't understand what fascism really means. In Stalin's Russia, you could have been Stalin's number one fan. You could have ⁓ Stalin's the best, Stalin's the greatest. You could have then acts you could have pissed off your neighbor without even knowing you pissed off your neighbor. You could have said something about his wife's cooking and he took offense to it. He calls the secret police, and next thing you know, you're the one who's arrested. And you're the one who sent off ⁓ into prison for the rest of your life. You're like, but I love Stalin. That's where we're headed. Yeah. And America's sleepwalking into it. And I I think we're seeing enough action in the streets that people are are waking up to it. But again, like what's it gonna, what is it really gonna mean to wake up to it? How are we really gonna fight back? speaker-0: Yeah. Yep. Right. And even more. Even even closer in time, even more contemporarily speaking. Fidel Castro, like my dad was from Cuba. He told me all my childhood. He told me all the stories about what we're seeing today that you couldn't even trust your neighbor because they were going to snitch on you. That's where we are. They're looking through people's social media accounts. Did you see the video? I think it was South Florida. Some lady had two cops come and confront her about her Instagram post or something. Yeah. Like this is what my dad was telling me about this when Cuba was going through that transition. And then they, and then all of a sudden they jumped on communism. It's the same thing. speaker-1: About the mayor. Yeah. speaker-0: And that's what frustrates me about my Cuban brothers and sisters in South Florida, all over Florida. Did you not listen to your parents when they were telling you how they had to grab all their shit and leave? speaker-1: Yeah, that was the news yesterday or two days ago is the story of those very same Cubans being shocked, shocked that they're being arrested and deported. Yeah. speaker-0: I have family members and very close family members that are, you know, they were friends with my dad from like when they were in kids in Cuba together. They refuse to leave the house. There's nothing but trouble out there, they'll say. And that's how you want to live. And I'm sorry, I served. I'm not going anywhere. I'm a veteran. I'm not going anywhere. So I'm going to be one of those rabble rosters that you're going to have to tear away from here. I'm not going anywhere. speaker-1: Yeah, I think we're seeing more and more people stand up for their neighbors in their neighborhoods doing exactly that. And Minnesota right now is doing that. ⁓ obviously we've been doing it here in Los Angeles since since June. ⁓ they're just the other side is not gonna go away quietly, which is what they threatened. ⁓ one of the guys from the Heritage Foundation before the election last year, he was like, if the left just lets us do this, there'll be no blood. Like you guys just want to establish white nationalist or Christian white nationalist, you know, techno fascist state. And the rest of us don't want that. But what they were hoping was because they live in fear, right? Yeah. They're literally afraid. They're like, ⁓ well, we'll just make them afraid like us and they'll give up. But what they don't recognize is we don't live in fear and we'll fight back against the fear. And it's frustrating them. speaker-0: this. percent. speaker-1: And that's why they're starting to shoot more and more people. I do think ⁓ yeah, we're not we can't go back to January twenty-first, twenty twenty-five, right? Things are different the second time with Trump. So it's not just like abolish ice. That's kind of bogus. It's abolish ice and make sure that every undocumented American, there's 11 or 12 million of them, immediately become legal residents. Get them out of the shadows. In fact, speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Use the 175 billion of ICE and so my competitor or the incumbent Jimmy Gomez, everything's always a joke with him. Everything's always a a stunt. He's like, we'll take the 175 billion from ICE and we'll use it to build a million new starter homes for families. Like, A, that doesn't help anyone in California 34, because you can't build any starter homes here in California 34. And B, you still have this issue of 11 to 12 million undocumented people. We have to document them. That's the answer. Use that 175 billion to document them. Yeah. And give them a is an immediate pathway, immediately make them legal residents. And that's the that's what has to be told to those eleven to twelve million people. We're coming out of the shadows, we're gonna do a background check. If you lived here ⁓ a clean life, done nothing wrong, you're signed up as a legal resident, congratulations. ⁓ if you don't come out of the shadows, then that becomes the issue. Like, why are you not coming out of shadows? This is something you're trying to hide. But Most of the 11 and 12 million will come out of the shadows. One ⁓ a gentleman ⁓ who's been here probably, I think he said like 25 years. I was in ⁓ going up in town Vermont, which is a heavily probably the most heavily immigrant area actually, around Pico Union, the Korea town border. He was a Salvadoran gentleman, he's been here 25 years and he has a small shop, you know, street vendor. He's like through a translator, he's like. I am an American in everything except for a piece of paper. I have a you know, I have my kids here. I have neighbors. I am basically an entrepreneur, right? I have my own shop. I am an American in everything but a piece of paper. And that really stuck with me. Like you're right. You are. And that's why I'm running for Congress, is to make sure that you become an American with that piece of paper. And we just don't have the the people in office right now, especially Democrats. Just don't have the courage to even say that, right? Yeah. ⁓ so it's not just abolish ice, it's not gimmicks with 175 billion. It's how do we solve the problem? We don't use it as a cudgel like it's been used for the last 35 years, back and forth, back and forth. We just fix it. So I'm about fixing it. And human dignity. And it's the best thing for America. If you want America to succeed, you want immigrants. speaker-0: Yeah, you need them. Everything is expensive without them. speaker-1: It's well, it's I know what you're saying. And it's not a matter of having immigrants who make less than a minimum wage, right? We need to, for all Americans of all statuses, have a minimum livable wage. We need to have for Americans of all statuses, like we said, tax funded public health care that covers everyone. But what immigrants do, and it's you said your father ⁓ came from Cuba. 50% of all new companies and 50% of all new hiring for the last three decades have been immigrants and the first and the second generation, they're kids of immigrants who started all those new businesses and did all that new hiring. That is the growth. It's not a matter of keeping things inexpensive. It's a matter of growing. You need that your dad and all the other immigrants that you know and that I know. To leave your home, no matter how bad your home is, to leave your home is such an act of courage and bravery and risk taking that those are the people who found businesses. Those are the people that hire b people for their businesses. That's what we need more of. And that's just we don't our media does not make space for those conversations. You do, which I appreciate. and our two-party system doesn't make room for those conversations. speaker-0: appreciate it. speaker-1: Right. ⁓ and it's ⁓ it's offensive. I mean, Jimmy Gomez is in the safest seat in the world until now. and he won't have these conversations. He doesn't represent his people as far as what their values are, what they bring to this nation. Again, whether they're ⁓ Mexican American who's fourth generations in East LA and they can trace their family back to you know 1900. Or whether it's a ⁓ Bangladeshi immigrant in Little Bangladesh who's been here since ⁓ the 70s as they fled the horrors of Bangladesh. Right. The commonality is we all see each other as human beings. And that's the argument to make. And so one of the things I say is we need to change our culture before we change our politics, and that's what I mean by that. speaker-0: I am so glad you said that. ⁓ you remember in the seventies when Americans used to be so proud of being smart. You remember? Yes. Yeah. We used to value education. used to, we used to, and everybody complained about homework and stuff like that, just cause you wanted to go play. like everybody, everybody was reaching for those A's. sometimes bees. Now it's kind of like... The schools are underfunded, everyone's complaining about the teachers, and we need to change the culture back to where we're making our people hungry for intelligence and knowledge. That's the culture change. Great. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ We have to fight this anti-intellectualism. And part of it, you know, it's one of those things like it's always been there. ⁓ but I think in many ways, social media has made it a million times worse because now you can proudly show your ignorance to the world. speaker-0: And they take pride in it. speaker-1: Right. And speaker-0: things I look at it I'm like ⁓ my god what do you and it's not even that I'm old it's like why would you do that speaker-1: And it's okay to like you don't have to have an opinion on everything. You don't have to know everything. Yeah. You don't have to trust scientists or trust science, but you should have some understanding of what the scientific method is before you go critiquing science. Yeah. And they don't, right? It's all these people, many of them who thought, you know, seize if you're lucky in science class are now telling you how, you know, ⁓ ⁓ medicine is made and like they somehow understand statistics and it's just like it's okay to not know but there's this sort of shame in not having an opinion versus actually knowing anything and then yeah it becomes this complete anti intellectualism which also like you're talking about like schools ⁓ my kids' journeys ⁓ I have a A son who just graduated high school and a daughter still in high school. Thank you. and you know, my journey with them was starting out ⁓ at a, you know, a co-op daycare. And then we weren't really trusting of L A U S D. So we sent them to ⁓ a charter school. And then my son actually finished a private school and my daughter goes to the public school here. ⁓ What I've learned from all of that was kind of what we were talking about earlier about like markets. Education is a market that there's no there cannot be a profit motive that ever is higher than the social motive of just creating smart people, right? Educated people. So I think, you know, I was part of a charter school experiment, and I'm happy to have been the experiment, but the experiment showed that charter schools don't perform better than public schools. They perform the same. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: So then they shouldn't exist. We did the experiment, we learned our lesson. Let's fully fund our public schools instead of this charter BS. ⁓ the other part of it is we also ⁓ you know, I was very good at school. Lucky me. Like school is made for a kid like me. ⁓ but that was what 10% of us, maybe 15% of us for the other 85%, even if they graduated, it wasn't like their thing, right? We need to rethink. As you talk about like re ⁓ embracing just like intelligence and education, education should be a lifelong thing. Right. And the government should provide it, like healthcare, for your whole life. If you're 80 years old and you want to go get a degree, there should be a public school for you to go back and get a degree, ⁓ you know, college degree, whatever it is, at eight. And that's how we should think about education. So I absolutely agree with you there. Like it's it's this giant change. And it's just it's okay to be to not know the answer. You can actually take pride in keeping your mouth quiet. speaker-0: Yeah. And if we teach you, if we can teach you how to investigate and how to research and how to find the answer, because in that way you can take, you can take two and three different people's opinions and you're not going to shit on them instantly. You can take all that information and then go back and do your own research and then come up with your own thesis or hypothesis and how you're going to do things better. Yeah, you know, the science is there and science is a practice and it's a bunch of smart people having fun. speaker-1: I like it. Yes, indeed, right. speaker-0: It really is like it's science is is a blast because you get to break things on purpose As long as you turn as long as you're taking notes, you can do basically anything you want exactly speaker-1: And I think you also said something s in there that's really important as far as I think in this anti-intellectualism, there's also this idea like there's one true answer and I have it. Well, actually, most of the time, the truth is two or more, often more, competing ideas, right? There's not one simple answer. There's these things that have a conflict that you have to figure out where the conflict is and where they mesh to actually get to the real answer. And I think that's where people try to run away from. They want simple, they don't want dissonance in their life. They don't want to have to think too hard, which is fair. I understand it. But if you don't want to do that work, you shouldn't be rewarded for not doing it. Especially when there's other people who who do do that work. It's a free country. So you get to, but I think you know we don't want to cancel anyone. We want to show you that maybe what are your goals in life? Like if we think of it from a goals perspective, what are your actual goals? Let me help you get there. Right. Like you don't, you don't have all the answers. I don't have all the answers. Right. So why does anyone think they have all the answers? Let's work together and combine our solutions to get to those best answers. And I think if we can start getting to those places, again, part of it's the reality of. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: There's a certain part of the population that just thinks in straight racial hierarchy. I'm a white person, I'm better than you. Screw you. Those people are probably not redeemable. If they want to come to us, they can come to us. But we can't spend any more time trying to convert them. But everyone who's yes, exactly. Yeah. But everyone who's not that, we should be reaching out to to say, Hey man, I understand that you want a better life for yourself. speaker-0: like Stephen Millers. speaker-1: Maybe you think someone's taking something from you. Let don't worry about other people. Let's just worry about you. Yeah. Let's just worry about how to make your life better. If other people's lives get better at the same time, who cares? Your life's getting better. Right. This is the type of stuff that, you know, that's not a racist dog whistle. That's not belittling someone and saying, ⁓ you are a racist. Yeah. But that's trying to meet them where they're at and saying, speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: It's okay to not have all the answers. You don't have to be embarrassed. I don't have all the answers. I'm not embarrassed. Let's find a commonplace. If we can start that we each have dignity, then we can build off of that. speaker-0: for you folks that are listening to these words and you're still jumping on ignorance. All I can say is if you have a black and or brown neighbor and you think that they're a dumb ass and you think that they're doing it wrong, send them to school. Let's pay for school so we can make better Americans. So then that way you can stop bitching and complaining about how shitty Americans are. Yeah. You have to invest in the quality of person that we're putting out into the world. How are we gonna have underfunded schools? I'm not even gonna go down that path yet. How are we gonna have underfunded schools? How are we gonna have homeless people? How are we gonna have all of this debauchery happening in our streets? And then you guys going out there. into like the UN and stuff like that saying that America is the greatest place on the face of the We're not showing our best face. speaker-1: Yeah. You know, I we have these ideals that were given to us. And again, those ideals of liberty and freedom, pursuing your own life and liberty, having your own property, your own health, ⁓ your own happiness was in the very first Congress after the Constitution passed, and they're electing the first Congress and the first president in seventeen eighty eight, seventeen eighty-nine. The way the constitution was written, ⁓ Article One, Section Two. Section one, ⁓ talking about how you're gonna elect the members of the house. Basically, it was a wink wink from the beginning. The Constitution said to elect the representative of the house, you have to use the rules of the largest house of your state. Well, Virginia was unicameral, the other states had bicameral, but the largest of each state's how equivalent of their house or their state legislature ⁓ or assembly. was they already knew the wink wink. You had to be twenty one years old, you had to be a man, and you had to be white. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: In that first election, only 13% of the population could vote. Only 13% of America was 21 years old and older, was white, and had property. Right? Yeah. So of course it was an ideal. And we've never lived up to that ideal. Yeah. It's time to say, you know what? It's time to make that ideal just a flat out reality for all 336 million of us. speaker-0: It's crazy. speaker-1: Yeah. That it's not liberty is not something somebody owns. And it even goes back, I mean, we talk about it in America, it goes back to the Greeks who were the first ones to think about liberty. Well, it was probably even fewer than 13% of Greeks were free people, right? So even those ideals back then, you're talking five percent of the population, right? So that you know, I'm gonna butcher it, but Dr. King's like the so slow arc of the moral universe bends towards justice. speaker-0: Yeah speaker-1: I do believe that. But that bending isn't a smooth band. It and goes up. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, sometimes it bends back and comes back. Yeah. speaker-1: So yeah, it's a slow arc if you smooth it out. It's going like this on the way. And obviously, right now we're in one of these dips. I want it so that when we come out of this dip, we go all the way to just those ideals have to be universal. They have to apply to every single one of us. It doesn't matter where you were born, it doesn't matter the color of their skin. It doesn't matter who you love. It doesn't matter how you love. ⁓ it just has to apply to everyone. And there's not an argument against it. Like people are like, speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: ⁓ I'm losing friends because of my, you know, politics. Well, when politics becomes shorthand for your morals, and again, I'm not gonna tell you're not a moral person. I'm not gonna tell a racist like a racist believes they are a moral person. Those are not my morals. So I but I don't have anything in common with you because your morals are so far from mine. Now I think the difference, of course, is I don't wish you to die. I don't wish you to disappear. I still wish you the best. You, on the other hand, want me to die. That's a problem. speaker-0: Right. Right. That's huge. Cause I want you to be a part of the team and you want me to go away. Yeah. Or you want me to die or whatever it is, whatever it is, either way, because of the color of my face, you don't want me to come and play in this cool park. Isn't that wild? speaker-1: And so again, I think there's you know, I I I sort of believe in this idea of the thirds, like there's a third of America that just truly is gone. They believe in these horrible things. There's a third of us that don't, but we don't necessarily because I don't want to just say we're free thinkers, but because we don't all because we don't conform to everything. We don't think alike, we don't work in a block. So that third is always in a voting block because they just ultimately want the same one thing, racial hierarchy. Cool, easy at all costs. The ends justifies the means, all costs. I could become dirt poor. I don't care as long as we have racial hierarchy. The other third of us are like, well, that's awful. We want what's best for everyone. Can't even decide what's best for everyone. Yeah. But to me, that scary part is that third in the middle. They're like, it doesn't affect me, or it won't affect me. I'm not bothered. I think they're really quickly finding out it's gonna bother you here real soon. speaker-0: Yep, politics is going to politic on you if you can, you can try to ignore it. You can try to ignore it. And all these wonderful ideas for all my conservative friends out there, all these wonderful ideas that we're kicking around, you're thinking, how are we going to afford all of this? If taxing the rich makes you nervous, I've been saying this. Maybe we don't bomb a couple of these countries. Maybe we save a little bit of money on this aggression. And here, I'm gonna go even further. What if we did a Doge type of situation, but instead of all the things that were actually working and making the world a better place, what if we took Doge and sent him over to the Pentagon? speaker-1: I agree with you. I'm even it's easy, even easier for me. You just cut the budget in half. There's no and maybe even less. There's no reason to have more than a $500 billion military budget. There's just no reason. There's no justification. The American people benefit nothing from it. Raytheon benefits. Boeing benefits. Yep, exactly. No one else. speaker-0: Lucky. speaker-1: Benefits in this country. We are literally bankrupting ourselves. I mean, basically, whatever Trump was like, we're gonna have a $1.5 trillion ⁓ defense budget. Like, that's literally all of the money the country brings in in a year. Like, what are you talking about? Like, this is literally how you again that you want to kill the superpower, kill the superpower. But there's also things that we don't, I've never speaker-0: about. speaker-1: You know, you you hear a lot of the ⁓ well, where were you when Obama was dropping bombs on brown people? ⁓ I was complaining about him protesting. ⁓ where were you during the Iraq war? I said it was the worst possible thing that we could ever do. speaker-0: I was actually in Germany before, I don't know. ⁓ speaker-1: as someone who did it, I was just like, this is really bad. This is stupid. ⁓ since World War Two. The end of World War II. There's not been one successful military intervention by the United States that has been received by the people we were supposed to help, that has left them with a stable government, and/or that has made the people of the United States better. Also, always in the framework of there was never any other than Afghanistan, there was no danger to Americans except for Afghanistan. And of course. It wasn't Afghanistan that bombed us. It was, or sorry, that did 9-11. It was Saudis, but we didn't come up and take over Saudi Arabia. So to me, there's a slight justification from the defensive posture of what we did in Afghanistan. The only other semi-successful but not really ⁓ intervention was in Kosovo in 97 or 98, which then also felt very much like speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: Wag the dog. Hey, the president's getting in trouble for a blowjob and defining like what is what is the definition of sex, right? Hey, ⁓ look, there's a convenient genocide. Let's go stop the genocide. But the problem is what we know is once we started dropping bombs in Kosovo, ⁓ the ⁓ Serbians just started massacring people faster. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: It didn't slow down the genocide. It maybe it ended it at a certain point. So that's what I said. Like maybe that one's a 50-50, but not really. The genocide got faster. There's not been one intervention going back to we'll say we'll we'll we'll say after Polk ⁓ did the Spanish ⁓ Mexican-American War and we finished Manifest Destiny and the continent was complete. There's not been one American intervention that was protecting Americans from any sort of danger. Our military does not make us safer. It does not make us more secure. It does make us poorer, less healthy, and in many ways less secure. So how do we fix it? Just cut the budget in half. Pull all of our troops from around the globe. I don't mind Trump is accidentally like, you know, the the blind scroll finds a nut every once in a while. Yeah. ⁓ He's accidentally rebalancing the world and like Europe's gonna stand up an army. Great. Europe should stand up an army and we should leave. Absolutely. And we should be like NATO doesn't bother me as far as should we defend other democracies if attacked by non democracy? Maybe. But that we have this global footprint that we just did what we did in Venezuela, that we're threatening Colombia, that ⁓ You know, they're gonna send little Marco Rubio to be the dictator of Cuba. Like no, no, no, no. Like what about what about China? China's budget's like 300 billion. We're still twice that. ⁓ Russia's is three hundred billion, but that's because they're fighting a war that they should not be fighting. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, real. speaker-1: So top if you take the top two and we just go cut ours in half, we're still as large as the top two combined, and they're just not threats. They're just not threats. And it's a lie that we tell ours again. We talked about myths earlier. It's just another myth. The Russians are not a danger to us. The Russians are a danger to Ukrainians, to Europeans. Yeah. The Chinese are not a danger to us. They're a danger to Filipinos or the Philippines and to Taiwan and Japan. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: But they're not a danger to us. Yeah. And it's not our job to defend on the front lines those countries. It's our job to be allies with them. But that's the type of rebalancing that this world needs. Also, we still have 1300 nukes. Russia still has 1300 nukes. China has however like, again, like, you know, we ⁓ trying to explain to my kids what the Cold War was like. speaker-0: There's a bunch of movies about people invading America. That's what it was like. speaker-1: Exactly. ⁓ It's just like the the we I don't want to say go as far as saying we are the baddies. We don't help. We don't help. And if we don't help others and we don't help ourselves, then there's no justification. So there's just no justification for the way our military operates today. And you said it way, way earlier. And then we take all that excess crap and we give it to the police. Like, no, no more of that. We have to demilitarize our police for. speaker-0: For real. For real. And granted. Cops need to deal with. machine guns and cop killer bullets and all this stuff. So it's a, what's the opposite of serendipity? It's the opposite of a wonderful situation. have, you have, I'm from the inner city. You have underfunded programs in the inner city, underfunded schools. You don't have ⁓ boys and girls clubs. ⁓ There's a lot of things that aren't happening. So you have a population that's basically given up and they know that they're going to get harassed. So when the cops come to harass, they're doing their job because they're a bunch of, you know, bullies and stuff. And then you have a population that just gave up because you've shown us that the system is rigged and you rub it in our face constantly. So then a cop is going to come and mess with me and maybe I haven't had my second cup of coffee that day. Maybe my lady get, you know, she. She pissed me off before I went to work. And now I have to deal with this ignorant motherfucker that has a, that has an attitude because his dad didn't hug him or whatever it was. You know what I mean? Yeah. So you're only making it worse by giving these guys tanks. speaker-1: And I think there's other smarter ways to do it. Again, ninety-nine percent of what the police respond to is after the fact. Yeah. Right. The crime has already been committed. Yeah. So let's just be really smart about it. Let's have more, let's have fewer patrols and more SWAT type things that only come out when necessary. And then what you really need so that like the crime clearance in Los Angeles and the LAPD is something like 10% or 15%. So we have nine ⁓ about 9,800 cops in LAPD, which I think like 1,500 are detectives. Why don't we have 4,500 detectives and solve the crimes? Right? And why don't we have 3,000 people on patrol? Because we don't need them all on patrol all the time if speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: The crime happens, they're not deterring crime, right? They'll tell you they are. There's no evidence they are. speaker-0: You're doing things like speeding and you're touring. If you're parked here, no one's going to break into that coffee shop to snatch the money because you're right there. speaker-1: Right. And if once you drive away, if they wanted to go speaker-0: that was smashing ground. speaker-1: Right. And so it's it's things like that, but then it also gets tied to hey, you know what? If the types of crimes also matter, right? We're talking like we haven't talked about like justice reform. I think and I've heard some stories from people who ⁓ who did time in prison, mostly they were like, I was 17 or 18, I did something stupid. Like, ⁓ what'd you do? They're like, ⁓ I stole something. I'm ⁓ you should just be able to pay it back. They're like, No, it was an armed robbery. I'm like, okay. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: Right. But there's also a lot of times where it's truly something like a simple property crime. If you do a simple property crime, the punishment should be get a job, pay it back. Right. If you did a crime where you actually did, you know, hurt someone, you ⁓ assaulted someone, ⁓ you sexually assault someone, you punch someone, whatever, right? You take their liberty. That's taking someone's liberty, it's actually right when you violate their space. And they can't just there's no you can't just pay them to be whole again. You've taken something inside of them. Well, right. Then maybe that's when you have to do some time in prison. But also you should have to be dedicated to personal time to make the victim whole, right? Like we have to rethink what it means. Now, again, are there some people who are just bad people who given those second, not even second, yes, the chances to redeem themselves from the mistake they made and they just keep doing the bad, that's who should go to jail. And they should go there, I have no problem saying for a long time. But that should not be the goal of jail. The goal of justice isn't putting you in the slammer. The goal of justice is making sure that the victim that gets whole, if you can make them whole or as whole as you can, and that you, the person who ⁓ who who committed the crime, are the one who does that restitution. And I think if we start thinking about that, we start changing lives. Because again, what we end up doing is we end up destroying families. We end up destroying neighborhoods. In California, it's something like two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to incarcerate someone. Now we've closed four prisons. We're about to close a fifth. So we're going in the right direction. And crime keeps going down. People will tell you that crime's going up, crime's actually statistically going down everywhere. So again, it's how do we make people feel safe? Because you can't tell someone who feels crime is going up that they're wrong or they're crazy. Like that won't work. But again, what we can say is what is your objective? You just want to you want to be safer. Well, then what does safety actually look like? And that's how we can change those conversations. speaker-0: And even before people start going to jail again, this is why we need to. We need to invest in education and change the culture is because we want to get to those people before they feel they need to break the rules. You know. speaker-1: And again, it's like you said it's it's education, it's healthcare, it's housing. We know what it takes, but in in the United States, going back to our chattel slavery formation, there's profit to be made. Yeah. No, it's wrong. There should the the number of points. speaker-0: Yeah. What a business plan. What a shitty business plan. If your business plan is, need to take advantage of people so they can do the work that I need done for super, super cheap, you are a terrible boss. Terrible. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: That's so frustrating to. to be such a big fan of education and everything and even the internet. And we have all this information at our fingertips. And we have people that wanna leverage all of this technology to make you go to jail to work for free. speaker-1: Yep. You have to get paid and not just to make you work, but to get paid to house you while you work, right? They're getting it's everyone talks about like, ⁓ we ended slavery. Well, actually, the 13th amendment didn't end slavery. If you go to prison, you can be a slave, right? And that was the whole prison industrial complex, and it's still here. I I'm one of the things I'm running for is to outlaw everywhere. There should be zero private prisons. It's just it's an affront to a free society. speaker-0: Yeah! speaker-1: That again, you're putting a profit motive on locking people up. Right. We know there's documented cases where judges and counties are convicting people for the most minor offense to make sure that they fill a jail because they have a contractual obligation to fill a private prison. Right now, again, like people are talking about like ICE. ICE is not about deporting anyone, ICE isn't deporting anyone. They now have ninety thousand people locked up in cages. speaker-0: They're there for show. speaker-1: Because Core Civic and ⁓ Geo Group are getting paid for each of those people. There's money to be made locking people up. There's no money to be made deporting them, so they're locking them up. And America's like, ⁓ you should have come the right way. F you. F you. F you. speaker-0: Yeah, for real. We went and we did. OK, so my dad came to America to get away from Fidel's takeover, right? America had their fingers in that whole thing. Santo Domingo had Trujillo that, from what I understand, America had a really prominent part in putting him in place. My grandmother, at the age of 23, left by herself to come to America because of American intervention in the Dominican Republic. Nobody gives a shit about Haiti anymore. All of this is happening. And then we're surprised that people want to come to the land of milk and honey. And then we want to kick them out. We need to stop intervening in other people's business. Yeah. And we need to get and fix our business. Because if we are the shining hill on this or the shining city on the hill that everyone's talking about Ronald Reagan's old busted ass preaching about how wonderful we are, we are not. We need to get to that point. And again, if we get it figured out, we don't have to fire missiles because people are going to want to do it this way. It's just y'all are lazy sometimes. It's easier to build a prison than it is to buy a bunch of books and educate kids. It takes a little longer, are bad. And then the educated kids don't want to work for free or cheap, cheap or free. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it's we have our priorities. We believe in myths that aren't true. And you can see they're not true just by opening your eyes. Like I'm not telling you anything. Just go outside. Believe what you see with your own eyes. And again, it's like, no, if we just double down on what's not working, it'll not work. speaker-0: Nice. Yeah. And then everyone complains that everything is corrupt and they're on the take. Yeah, let's change it. speaker-1: One of the things I talk about is ⁓ because I I'm running as an independent. ⁓ and people are like, ⁓ independence can't win. Well, there's a strategy for independence, which is if we elect enough of us to Congress to deny both parties a majority, we get the House back, we get our government back. But it takes courage on the part of the voter to do something different. Our psychology, we we've made politics such a team sport. I'm on team blue, I'm on team red, that and even though we know that more and more people are ⁓ registering as independents, we also know that you lean left as an independent or you lean right as an independent. And it still pretty much guarantees you're gonna vote for one of those two team colors. My discussion. With the people of California thirty-four, but wherever there's an independent running anywhere, or wherever a Democrat is being primaried or a Republican is being primaried, and you can get rid of the incumbent, the useless incumbent, is your psychology is to say, incumbent, I know that person, even though I think they suck, even though I know they're awful, even though I know they're corrupt, I know them. What we need to do is we need to ask the voters to have the courage here in 2026 to do something different because you know that person is corrupt. You know that person doesn't vote the way you want. You know that person has the interest of Lockheed Martin ahead of your interests and the interests of Jeff Bezos ahead of your interests. So don't vote for them. People talk about accountability. You want accountability. 96% of the time we send the incumbent back. Don't do it anymore. Just have the courage. Look at the ballot. And voters need to have the courage here in 2026. Trust yourself. Do it this one time. Vote different and then see what happens. If you don't like it, go back to the way it was. But I guarantee it, yeah. If you do the different, we'll get to different. speaker-0: 100%. 100%. What's your professional background and how does it fit into politics? speaker-1: Yeah. I started my professional career in advertising and marketing as a copywriter. speaker-0: Yeah. No, if I say Leo Burnett, do you know what I'm talking about? I used to work there. I there. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ artist creative account. speaker-0: ⁓ I was in the creative technology department. Nice. So I did design stuff, I programmed stuff, I animated stuff. speaker-1: That's awesome. Yeah. So we we come from that similar background. ⁓ and ultimately where I ended up was mostly ⁓ live events and technology. creating live events, creating technology, the power of those live events and engage people. And then from that it is exactly what they call it. Yes. So I was an experiential creative director. and then from those experiences, I was doing a whole bunch of AR and VR stuff. speaker-0: what they call experiential. speaker-1: And it was at the you know the the last time what eight years ago now, ⁓ the the third evolution of AR and VR as it was skyrocketing, and I actually went to a startup to create ⁓ an augmented reality virtual reality collaboration platform. So then I did my straight technology startup and I was the product manager there. ⁓ but they're all sort of the same thing. And you asked, like, how does it affect my my politics, which is My job as creative director and as product manager was not to know all the answers. My job was to understand the objectives. What are we trying to even accomplish? What is the strategy then to get there? Do I know the strategy? Not by myself, but I can certainly put a stake in the ground, and then you all can help me build the foundation of that strategy. Right. Now we've built the strategy. Like, let's start building the tactics on top of it and start ⁓ speaker-0: That's great. speaker-1: Executing against that strategy and building the rest of the house. Well, again, I can't build the house by myself. ⁓ but I can help project manage it. I can help make sure that it's still going in the direction that we want it to go. Hey, did we mess up? Was our strategy wrong? Is it too late to fix the foundation? In creative, usually it's not, right? So, hey, let's go, let's adjust our strategy, right? So I think it's really an objective solutions approach. And I don't think our legislators and our executives have that approach because they're lifelong politicians. Why would they? Right. If you're in a if you're in a government agency, if you work at the planning department, that's your approach because you're a professional, right? Yeah. You work in ⁓ you know, in in one of the science agencies of the federal government, that's how you run your agency because you're a professional. But your congressperson who sets your budget and all this, they have no idea. So I think it's part of again, I will never say run a the government like a business. speaker-0: Yeah speaker-1: because that's stupid. But it doesn't mean that but it doesn't mean that we can't run Congress with more of a strategic approach of what the hell are we just trying to accomplish? Yeah. Can we agree on that? Can we agree on the objectives? Because if we agree on the objectives, then we're not arguing about cultural stuff and blah blah. We're then arguing about how do we accomplish it. And we can try different things. Right. Like I said about charter schools earlier. They were an experiment. They have failed us. We should kill them all. And just give up. But but it was worth having the experiment. Yeah. Right. And and we think and we we don't treat government like that. We we treat it like this thing is starting, this has to be funded forever. And whether it works or not, we don't care because it's the law. Like that's just not how to do it. I think the other part is ⁓ you know, as having been the team leader, is you would often be put in a room with like that loud person. And the loud person would take up all the space. And you want to give them the space. And sometimes they, you know, sometimes they know what they're talking about, sometimes they don't. I think part of my approach also that affects my politics when it comes to the residents of California 34 is I don't just want to hear the issues that you have, I want to hear what you think the solutions are. And I want to give you the floor and the space to hear those solutions. Because again, like I mean, I have all my issues and I have all my things that I think are the solutions for them, but I know. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: On their own, I'm not a hundred percent correct. But I'm also not afraid to start that conversation. But then I need you to work with me to help me. And then the other thing I think it does when you ask a resident or a voter ⁓ for the solutions, there's a lot of talk, and this is really bad. I mean, I've had conversations with democratic consultants who just insult the hell out of voters. They're stupid, they don't know what they want. ⁓ the median voter, this. I'm like, that is And again, like what's the the grain of truth is which they say so rudely and and basically make the voter like not even count anymore, is they are leading their own lives, right? They are a teacher, or they own the you know the the local bakery, or they're a a nuclear physicist. It's it doesn't matter what they are, but they're not thinking about these things all the time. And because they're not thinking from an Because even we were starting like, ⁓ what how do you solve homelessness? How do you solve housing? Well, no, they're the same, in many ways, the same problem. So we have to address them together. When you start to ask people the solutions, then they start to be able to piece together, home when I talk about crime, ⁓ you're right. No one's breaking into my house. I'm just referring to the people on the street who I think because they're on the street, there's more crime. Okay, well, let's solve homelessness. ⁓ we need healthcare for those people because they're not. Mentally well or healthy. ⁓ they need a place to live. We need more housing. So when you start to engage people, when they don't just tell you the issue that they have, but the solution, then A, they're more engaged. They start to feel a sense of ownership. And that's how they actually should be able to hold the people they elect accountable because now they're part of that solution. So I think that's where my professional background comes into play as far as how I do this. And I'm not a professional politician. I don't think any the idea that ⁓ I started at the town council and then I went to the state and then I went to federal. No, that's not public service. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, that's another myth we've told ourselves as Americans. It's a stupid myth. No, pick your office, run for your office, maybe run twice because the people know who you were the first time, and then go have a real job. Because politics, my friend, it's not a real job. I want this job, but again, I'm not gonna do it forever. I've never had a job for more than seven years. I'm not gonna have this job for more than seven years. I'm gonna beat Jimmy, I'm gonna win again in 28, I'm gonna win again in 30. speaker-0: Yeah speaker-1: And I'm gonna piece out and I hope I've created the world where other independents can see that this works, where we've started to reimagine what governance is, how we're all involved, and I'll have done my part and I'll go off and do what's next. ⁓ but my life is not the life of a professional politician. No one's should be. speaker-0: Yeah. And for those, cause now that my channel, I'm making more politically charged things. I'm getting a lot more politically charged comments on my, on my posts and stuff. And I get a lot of these folks that are like, ⁓ yeah, we want a bunch of dummies running. The house of representatives. And I'm like, but the, the house of representatives. If you put a bunch of dummies in there, it is what it is. We the Senate is a filter. But the House is supposed to be a direct representation of us. It's not supposed to be majority lawyers because we're not majority lawyers. We got to get some teachers in there with getting some designers in there. Be great. You know, talking about a can't remember his name, but he jumped over the fence at the White House. Caputo Joe Caputo, you know Joe Caputo he he's You know, he's he's a free thinker and he's not he's not a lawyer or or doesn't even want to be He just wants to come in Make some decisions share some of his thoughts of what he's seen and I'm gathering that's what you want to do, too You want to go and you want to change the way that we're doing business at least in the house? Yep Because it's the way that we've been doing it is not working. speaker-1: And all the evidence is right in front of you. Then it's not working. So it's also like again when I talk about Kirk's like, what do you have to lose? It can't, it can't work any worse because it's literally not working. So part of it also is I'm a systems guy. Like that's just part of what it's been my whole life is again strategy to the end. It's asked. Yep. And one of the truths about systems is they're always working as expected. It might not be the strategy and the goals you have, but the system's working as designed. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: It has to by definition of if you have an input and you have an output, something goes through the whole sausage. So then we have to change the system. And that's why I'm running as an independent. And again, it's also authentic. It's who I am. I haven't been a Democrat in 30 years. So it's authentic. But it's also recognizing I have been short, I never had a political home. I'm sure 98% of my votes were for Democrats because in this two-party system, I didn't have a choice. speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: Breaking the system is giving other people a choice. If someone else had been running as an independent right now, I would be supporting them. But that person never stood up. So I stood up selfishly for myself, right? And again, it's transformed me, like whatever that small selfish purpose was is long past and is now again, it has nothing to do with me. This is about creating an America. And I hope it doesn't sound cliche, but just that works for all of us. But in order for it to work for all of us, all of us have to work to do it. You can't expect we have a participatory representative democracy. People like Constitutional Republic, like whatever, too. ⁓ speaker-0: There have been decisions made throughout the times. We started possibly as a republic, but now decisions have been made that we're moving towards a democratic. speaker-1: Well, no, we still are repo. I guess the full thing is we are a participatory, representative, constitutional republic democracy. And again, you started, right? We always had direct votes of the House. That was the original idea. If you have direct votes of one third of your government will put the the Supreme Court aside. ⁓ You have participation or you have that you have democracy. So again, like they want to be cute. But my overall point was we cut off the participatory part. We're okay with the representative part. We're okay with the constitutional part. We're okay with the republic part. We're even okay with the democracy part. But what we fail as citizens is the participatory part, where too many of us either just don't participate, which is complete failure. You said it earlier, right? If you're not doing politics, politics is going to be doing you. You're giving up all your power. ⁓ but the other part is it's not just enough to vote every four years or every two years. It's texting and calling and DMing and going to the office of your representative, going to city hall meetings, going to commission meetings. You don't have to do it every day, but my God, if The American political hygiene, participatory hygiene, civic hygiene became I participate one hour a month in my government by making phone calls, it would completely radically change this country. And that's ultimately like the kind of movement that I hope to actually be sparking is by giving people something most Democrats vote against Republicans. They're voting not for a Democrat. Yeah, voting again. And same on the other side. I'm running to give people something to vote for. So hopefully excite them to start participating more. Which also gets to the point of to me, the biggest part of that movement ultimately is to make voting ⁓ affirmative, automatic, and easy. So, like right now, the right wing is going nuts, and they're doing it here in California, it's all over like threads and stuff. Shouldn't we pass the Save Act and everyone needs a voter ID? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. speaker-1: Yes, we should have it. We absolutely 100% should have a national voter ID that every citizen gets for free. It's assigned at birth for those of us who are already alive. They just give it to us. Maybe it's a security number, maybe it's not. And then if you just take, even if you, I mean, I would prefer that we take all of the primaries and have just one national primary day and one national general election day. If you did that and every single citizen has. An ID that they can vote on, there would literally be no fraud because if one ID got used twice, you would know that one of them wasn't valid, right? So it's not a matter of who it's not a matter of I showed my ID so I could get a ballot. No, it's there should be a national ID database, and all the states have to participate in that national ID database, and everybody gets to vote. And that would blow people's heads up. What everybody gets to vote? Everybody gets and I think we have to do Australia, like where they make you vote and they find you if you don't. But if you just decide I haven't voted in 10 years, but I woke up on this election day and I got my voter ID that they gave me when I was born. You go down, no questions asked, you get to vote. So that's to me the the types of changes. And it's actually kind of fun to talk to some people, ⁓ the conservatives, like, ⁓ we need voter ID. I'm like, I agree, but are you a patriot who also believes that all citizens should vote? Yes. Cool. So it should also be automatic. Yes. Versus like what the California GOP is doing is like, that's not what they want. California GOP and the Save Act in the federal government is you have to go pay for your ID and come down. And it's like, no, that's exclusion. We need automatic, affirmative, and easy. And I'm all on board. speaker-0: And I think that's one of the things what you just said is one of the things that our conservative friends need to pay attention to. We well, they probably do pay attention to it. And purposefully keep that gap there, but. We want people to vote. I, even if I am poor, I still want to say so in how we run this country. Even though I don't own property, I still, if you want to be my boss, if you're going to, I need to have a say so. And not everybody can afford, not everybody can afford groceries, let alone an ID. I can't take time off. If I don't work, I don't get paid. speaker-1: And that's the other thing. So it starts with that idea of making it affirmative and automatic and they get a national ID and everyone who's a citizen just gets their ID. And if you get naturalized, the day you get naturalized, you get your ID. If you get it the day you're born, the day you turn 18 is the day it turns on. If you're naturalized at 17 and then you turn 18, it turns on, right? It's just once you're a citizen, who votes? Who can vote? You can vote. Also, there should be no punishment for if you're a felon, if you're in prison. No, you haven't lost your citizenship. You're still a citizen. You still should have the right to vote. And then the other kind of changes are speaker-0: I wonder how many people in jail would actually vote for better education. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, no, it's absolutely to yeah, to improve the quality of their life. Yes. Yeah. ⁓ so the other thing is is we should not have election days on Tuesday. We should have election month. It should be 100% mail in ballots. ⁓ so and I think I think California does a great job of this. You know, my election primary elections June 2nd. The ballots are mailed to every single voter in the state 30 days before. There's drop boxes, you can mail it back. And if you really, really, really want to go vote, you can go vote in person. But that in person voting needs to move to voting weekend and it's a Saturday and a Sunday. And it's just it just needs to be easy. And speaker-0: For everyone and for everyone that thinks that California is a failing state when we vote, we get the mail in ballot. We get a pamphlet that kind of explains everything. I have the opportunity. This is how I do it. I will sit and I will look through the ballot and I will look up to see who's who, what they, know, because that's I'm again, I'm addicted to education. I'm addicted to research. I'll go and I'll look up and I'll fill out the thing. It might take me. two nights, I don't know, but at least I have that. And then I mailed that ballot. When the voting folks get the ballot, I get a text message that says, we received your ballot. You know, so like I'm able to I'm able to follow my ballot even as long as they we received your ballot and then another text message says it's we counted it. Thank you for voting. speaker-1: It's really awesome. speaker-0: And that is it's pretty seamless. speaker-1: And that's what we should just make nationwide. And again, it's like we have odd, you know, we have voter registration through the DMV, which is great. It's better than nothing. But like I said, the next step to me is do what California does, do what Oregon does, but also add this just national voter ID for every citizen. And you combine those two things, and that's how we save our democracy. And that's how we add the the key again. I said earlier, like. Voting is just one component of participatory democracy. But because we don't make it easy, because we the whole point was to never make it easy again. As we know, that only 13% of the original people got to vote. And then they've been fighting it to keep it at 13% for 250 years. Is let's just make it so 100% of us can vote and and see where it goes from there. And again, I'm not, you know, there's many. speaker-0: Yeah. there. speaker-1: I I don't care about the outcome. I just want people to be able to participate. Because the truth is, probably the more people vote, there's many things that are more conservative coded than I would like. But ultimately, I'm more concerned that people are participating versus not participating. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. As a creative director and business owner, ⁓ especially in the L.A. area, there's a lot of outsourcing of jobs that have been that's been happening. I had a conversation with a Disney animator just yesterday, as a matter of fact, and I said, explain to me what's happening with the movies and stuff in L.A. He said, ain't nobody trying to make movies in LA. What's that situation like and is it something that we need to like bring more attention to? my thoughts are yes, because I fall in the category of I need to be independent, right? Because all the jobs are gone. What what are some ideas or what's going on with that? And what are your feelings when it comes to that? And how are we going to address that? speaker-1: So not only do we not make content in Los Angeles anymore, we just don't make it in America. And again, it gets back to why? Because of healthcare. Because even when all of the job, or not all, but even as production left Los Angeles for like Georgia, because the state of Georgia was just giving tax breaks to they were, but they're not anymore. That's the thing. It's all driving. Yeah, that's the thing. There's almost no North speaker-0: Atlanta's killing it now. ⁓ my god, not even Atlanta. speaker-1: There's not North American. There's there is North American production. It's in Canada. Yeah. Where you can take a crew, where you can take a crew for three months or six months or nine months, and they can all get healthcare through Canada and they pay, right? But again, they they're working, they're getting paid, they're living. ⁓ productions in New Zealand, right? I think the other part of it, and you know, I mean, I'm here in Los Angeles. I have lots of writers' friends, lots of producer friends, lots of director friends. ⁓ There's some denial as far as When we were growing up, there were exactly three T V stations. And and and speaker-0: Three, ABC, CBS, and NBC. speaker-1: Yep. And there were two or three movies released every Thursday night, right? Yeah. In a movie theater. And you could go. And there were a hundred. So there were two or three stations. There was only content from what seven o'clock to ten o'clock, maybe on like Wednesday and Thursday nights or Thursday and Friday nights. So it's you till eleven for the adults, right? Moonlighting moonlighting's on. speaker-0: Hahaha speaker-1: And there were a hundred major releases a year, right? There's two a week. There's a there was 110 releases a year. Yeah. Now there's so much content created globally, but it's not just scripted content and it's not even just reality content. I personally, I mean I the last TV show that I watched was I watched the first 23 episodes of 24. No, I watched the first 22 episodes of 24. And then I did ever watch the last two hours. I know it happened, but yeah, that wasn't the last time that was 2003. Yeah. I haven't watched TV in 23 years. ⁓ because I get all of my content user generated. So more my kids, I I remember when my son was like getting into like seven, eight years old and like watch football. Let's watch football. Okay, let's watch football. He'd be What are these? He'd literally start crying at the commercials. Because he wasn't like, what is this thing, right? I just watch YouTube all day. This is commercial. ⁓ YouTube has more of our attention, and especially the younger you are, like it's just such a behemoth that there's only so many hours in a day to watch content, and it's almost all consumed on YouTube. And even as TikTok grows and even as Instagram grows, they're not growing as fast as YouTube. That's how fast and big YouTube is just here in the United States. There's just not enough hours in the day to support what used to be. speaker-0: you speaker-1: the the the studio model, right? Because we don't watch studio content anymore. So that's like that that's not a happy answer. I don't even think AI is a concern. I think AI is is slop. And again, I think it extends people who are good, but it doesn't mean people who were bad can tell stories. The fact that all offline editing is now so easy. And one of my good friends is a profession editor. He's like, my job is going to disappear not because of Technology, not because robots are placing it, but because anyone will be able to do it because the tools will be so simple. He's correct. So that we're all content creators, ⁓ in many ways. Like, am I a professional politician or am I a politician at all? Like, no, I'm like an influencer. I got to use all these platforms. I got doing this with you, right? Like you're doing this very non-traditional thing, but it's beyond non-traditional, it is the new tradition, right? You're a trailblazer, but this is where it's all going. ⁓ So in many ways, I think Hollywood is just so vastly different. I do think Los Angeles will always have the advantages of what I said a lot earlier. You know, there's 330 days of temperate sunshine. And that means a lot. It also has other advantages, you know, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley, but the next biggest tech area in the country is Los Angeles. ⁓ so as far as just having the brightest minds and the most creative minds, you still want Hubs of those. And this is still the world's largest creative hub. I think as it figures itself out, it will rebound. But again, if we want America to have a competitive advantage again, we just need taxpayer public taxpayer funded public health care that covers every single American. That's how you bring back Hollywood. That's how you bring back manufacturing. That's how you bring back everything. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: So I'd start there. ⁓ I don't I'm again I'm not a big believer in things like subsidies and all that. I think it's a race to the bottom. And we've proven it. I think all that stuff should actually go away and we should tax the wealthy their fair share. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-0: Subsidies for those folks that don't understand it's welfare for companies, correct instead of feeding and and giving health care to the citizens We're taking these large chunks of money and giving them to corporations which then they are Financially leakier than the government speaker-1: Yep. And then we also know, you know, ⁓ Radford just ⁓ declared bankruptcy, but it's not Radford lot or Radford Studio. It's the guy that bought up like 20 ⁓ of the studio lots because he thought he would corner the whole market. So did he do anything illegal? No, but again, the tax structure is what allowed that. If the tax structure were any sort of normal, he was rewarded to have all this property, but it meant that he'd have to have you had to rent your equipment from him, you had to have your offices on the lot, right? It was the old company town, but the company town model didn't work then. It collapsed. So it's it's collapsed under its own weight again. ⁓ there's plenty of ⁓ I I I I am ultimately still bullish on storytellers and I still think that when we get more to a I don't say generous, a fair speaker-0: Yeah Mm-hmm. speaker-1: social contract again with some sort of like a UBI where people can take risks, I think that is when creative really finds its footing again. speaker-0: 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Because if your foundation is solid, you're able to reach a little further. Yep. Right? Someone decided we needed to go to the moon. We were able to because we had the foundation of scientists that then, you know, and then on the way we proved that the world was not flat. Laughter ⁓ speaker-1: So yeah, I'm I'm I'm bullish on Los Angeles in every single way. And not to part of what I'm running for is you know, we have this incredible downtown that gets neglected by the people who represent downtown at the local level and at the state level and at the federal level. I am a champion of our downtown. ⁓ Hollywood's technically outside of the district, the neighborhood of Hollywood. ⁓ but I'm also a champion of all things Los Angeles, right? So the fact that California is a You know, there's a number between two hundred and eighty and four hundred billion that California gives to the federal government that we don't get back. Yep. We're supporting Mississippi and Arkansas. ⁓ Jimmy Gomez brags about getting money back to this district, but it's 20% short, dude. It's twenty like you're bragging. If I came back to my boss and said I only brought back 80% of what I invested, I'd get fired. California 34. We need to fire Jimmy Gomez. We need to fire the whole California delegation of Republicans and Democrats until they come back. With a hundred percent of what we send. And then we don't need to talk about subsidize. We don't need to subsidize Mississippi. If Mississippi fails because they just got rid of their income tax, that's us Californians paying Mississippi's income tax. No more. speaker-0: And people from Mississippi that are complaining about how California government officials are corrupt and stuff like that, why don't you go do a quick Google search and tell me what Brett Farb has been up to lately. speaker-1: Exactly. And so it's not just so to me it's it's Los Angeles first, California next, and then America in that order. It is not America, California, then Los Angeles. It is the people of this district who I need to represent first. And these people in this district send more money to the federal government than they get back. I will not vote for any budget until we get back to some sort of equal distribution of funds. If this California sends for every dollar California sends, California needs to get the dollar back. speaker-0: are coming. We need written letters from all of these red states that are only existing because of California money. Yeah. Yeah. Must be real. Yeah. speaker-1: That's it. That's how you also And then for them to insult us, and then not only for them to insult us, but then for our own representatives at every level to not stand up and say you're wrong. Yeah. And they don't. And again, news kind of right. Like Newsom's kind of does it, but you know, he's really only doing it as a foil to Trump. It wasn't like his natural thing. Yeah. ⁓ no, I'm here to tell the rest of the country that yeah, Los Angeles and Snow, ⁓ it's the greatest place in the world. And I don't there's the scene from Mad Men ⁓ in the elevator where like the young copywriter goes to Don. He's like, I feel bad for you. And Don says, I don't think about you. Small states, red states, I don't think about you. Like, why are you spending all this time feeling bad for me? Yeah. Worry about yourself. Take care of yourself. Take care of your people. Because what I'm here in California, what I'm doing here in Los Angeles is I want to take care of my people here in LA. speaker-0: Yeah. And again, if you if you get that little area popping, then it's going to grow to all of Los Angeles. Then it's going to grow to all of California. And then all you free loading red states will be able to eat off of our plate again. speaker-1: Again, like you said earlier, I don't wish anyone bad. I wish them well. I wish them well. Right. But stop taking stop stealing from me and then badmouthing me. speaker-0: ⁓ right. Exactly. Know your place. speaker-1: Yeah, there's no more stealing from me. This is what we've raised and what we've earned. We're gonna keep for ourselves here. You're gonna and what you raise and what you've earned, you keep for yourself there. And there'll be mutual support in that. But I'm not gonna say Mississippi shouldn't exist. I'm not gonna talk bad about Mississippians. We want to help and we want to have mutual respect. But that also means you can't keep saying you can't keep. speaker-0: We want to help. speaker-1: dumping on my state and my people without me pushing back. But again, when I push back, I'm not gonna demean you. I don't have to demean you to brag about how awesome Los Angeles is. speaker-0: ⁓ When talking to people that you want to represent and they say something like, I don't know, dude, it just feels like you worry more about immigrants than you do citizens. We're putting more money towards whether it's temporarily housing or even busing illegals when citizens need help. What would you say to those folks? speaker-1: There's no evidence to any of that. ⁓ right. I mean, the evidence again, the evidence, the evidence is that immigrants are a net positive for the economy in every in every every single manner. They excuse me, immigrants can't or not immigrants, but undocumented people can't vote. Undocumented people can't get federal aid. So they don't. And there is no fraud. It's just not happening. It's a figment. The fraud in in in Minnesota in Minneapolis was a white woman. Like were there Somalis involved? Sure, but the head of it was a white woman. Somehow that yeah. ⁓ I mean the biggest frauds here ⁓ have historically been ⁓ Armenians doing Medicare fraud right Mike speaker-0: Who's leveraging the Somalis? but rick scott does that in florida so there's that speaker-1: I'm not disparaging Armenians. I'm just saying, like, we know the largest fraud in this city ever was that, right? Yeah. ⁓ but again, does that make all Armenians bad? No. The large majority are rather awesome. Yeah. ⁓ should we punish the bad people who do bad things and and steal from us? Yes. ⁓ but The question you asked, right, is really from someone who's starting from a their presupposition is a racial hierarchy one already, that this person is dirty or less than or is a taker. So the the the question isn't a you're not gonna win by facts, right? I I mean I can show you the facts all day, like they're just a net positive. No, it's appealing to their humanity. I guess. My idea, this is sort of a a ⁓ my idea would be ⁓ instead of having a yearly ⁓ not a yearly, but instead of going a study abroad program, we should have a a s a a study US program where if you grow up in the suburbs or rural area, then you do a semester in a in an urban high school. If you grew up in an urban area, you do it the other way. Although although it it would be cool, but of course the urban kids. speaker-0: That'd be cool. speaker-1: We'll have no problem going to a suburban or a rural school. It's the other way around, right? Like those are the kids that'll have to learn. Because again, if you grew up in an urban spot, you're already cool with everything. You just are, because you have to be. Every everybody's different. So everybody's right. What's one more thing that's different? But for those people who've never seen anyone different, it's gonna be eye-opening. So I think again, you have to make a ⁓ an emotional. speaker-0: Yeah. Everybody's there. speaker-1: connection of what you're really talking about is other human beings. Those other human beings have the same needs and desires and wants that you do. And they put everything on the line and you should actually think of them as heroes for the courage that they had that you apparently lack. I mean I don't want to demean you but they have I'll say I guess the kinda is they've shown more courage than you have ever had to show. Right? You could be courageous. They're more courageous. ⁓ and that's who we want here. I want people who think America is great and who want to put it all on the line for America because not enough citizens want to do that. So, gosh, if someone who's not a citizen wants to do that, that's who we want here. That's who I want here. And those people are my neighbors, those people are my friends, dear friends, people I love. And speaker-0: Hmm. speaker-1: Again, we're talking about ⁓ talking about earlier about you shitting on California. Well, you're shitting on immigrants, you're talking bad about my friends. F speaker-0: You're talking about about my family. speaker-1: Yes, like no man, that's not cool. Again, I don't talk bad about your family. Why and your friends? You just gotta stop. You just gotta stop. And ultimately, it's not the job of black people or brown people or LGBTQ or any other form of minority who's discriminated against to push back on the white people who do the discriminating. This is what anti White people, I hope you're listening. It is our responsibility at the end of the day to go head to head, toe-to-toe with the other white people who don't see everyone else as human beings. Because again, in a racial hierarchy, and we've already seen it, we've lived it. I mean, black Americans, black people have put everything on the line for 400 years. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. speaker-1: They've only had the right to freely vote for 60. I mean, my my good friend who's running in California 37, Steve Hill, tells a story about his mom cherished her vote because she knew she grew up without it. Right. That's like we're not generations away from this. We're a generation away from you know, just a few years before I was born. Was just when women could sign their own open their own bank accounts to get their own credit cards. speaker-0: Isn't that crazy? speaker-1: This isn't generations ago. This is and they're international like we need to take away the right of women to vote. We need to take away their financial security or their financial independence. I'm like, no, again, you can think those things. You can have your marriage or your partnership if that's how everyone wants to be. Fine, but you can't force that on the rest of us. And that's where this breaks down. speaker-0: This is a couple of weeks ago. speaker-1: So they are doing everything they can, including murdering Americans in the streets to force this on us. And that's the real world like we're living in right now. So I as much as I have the vision and see where we need to go and can speak clearly about what has to happen, ultimately I know we're at a time where we're in the streets and we're at a time where it is up to white people of good conscience and good morals to take on the other white people. And say, look, man, you can be a hater. That's actually your right, but you can't force your hateful beliefs on the rest of us. That's where the line of liberty is drawn. It's not liberty for you, it's liberty for all. And that's not something that can be fought alone by minorities because they can't win. It's set up, it's literally the system is set up, so you cannot win that fight. So we've gotten close, they've How close we've gotten is actually makes it even more troubling to see how far we've regressed in the last decade, but it makes it all the more important for white people to pick that up and take it the rest of the way against the white people who resist. speaker-0: Yeah. And pay attention. I understand. mean, we were talking about all these content creators and everything, but the community itself, pay attention. Black folks are not tapped into this, all this ice stuff and well, we're, you know, we're starting to see black Panthers starting to come out now. So, you know, you're starting to see the drips of water from the dam, but I talked to people of color all the time and they just, they're like, this ain't our fight. We didn't do this. This is exactly what exactly what you said. This is, this is for, for unfortunately, and I hate saying this because I hate, I hate I hate what they, I hate this whole race thing, but this was on you white folks. Yeah. We're here because a lot of you were ignoring the signs and, and, know, forever for the 53 years that I've been around, we've been saying, Hey, they're us up in the streets. And everybody is like, what were you doing? You must've done something. No, no, no, no, no. I was walking home from school or I was in the car with my friend. and we got pulled out of the car. Like we've been saying this and now everybody's got a camera. Now everybody's like, ⁓ my God, all this stuff is new. No, it's old. Everything is old. We're seeing it now. We're seeing it now. And that's, know, when you take a good look at yourself in the mirror, if it scares you what you see, you need to make changes. speaker-1: We are still It's also helpful again. speaker-0: No, no, go ahead. speaker-1: I'm for better or worse, always optimistic. So and again, also understanding like nothing is a smooth curve, nothing goes up forever. ⁓ it's not two steps forward and three steps back. It is two steps forward and one step back, but I want the next steps to be five steps forward. I want us to get to that that place. And again, it's gonna take White people historically move the right direction after they've completely burned themselves. And I think we're getting to a place where white people are about to wake up to a very, very to their hand on a very hot stove that they put there on their own and got the stove as hot as they could. speaker-0: Boy, did they turn the heat up. Man, you guys went out and found yourself on this dude. Wow. speaker-1: Yeah. And yeah, it's it's it has to be ⁓ it has to be all of us of good conscience, but it has to be white people of good conscience just standing up and saying enough's enough to other white people and not being ashamed of it. Because I think part of even my journey is like when I was as an independent and not having a political home, I always felt like I couldn't say anything. Like the words I just said right now, clear as day that you're gonna put online that anyone whole world can see, I would have felt like society would be like, you can't say that clearly and obviously. Like actually, you know what? I can and I must. And I think that's the change in me. And hopefully other people are waking up to it too. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, it's the only way they only listen to you guys. They don't listen to us. This is only obvious. Again, we've been telling you we need we need books that we get cameras. Hey, we need better education. We get more cops. And it's the people it's the people doing white collar crimes that are running for office and running in Washington and. and running in ⁓ Wall Street. Yep, they do more damage than than feeding ⁓ a single mother of three. speaker-1: Yep. That's right. Yeah. We got to change that culture. We have to make virtues like justice and fairness and courage actual virtues that we celebrate as a society and recognize that ⁓ greed and lying and lie and and the ends justifies the means is vice. And again, I'm not gonna tell you that you can't believe. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: Horrible things about other people. I am going to tell you, you cannot force the government to make those beliefs the reality for all of us to live under. That's where it stops. speaker-0: Hmm. I like that. We're bumping up against two hours. So, leave us with your last, whether it's a quote, whether it's the last, whatever you want whatever you want to say, and then finish up with how we can all find you online. speaker-1: ⁓ I want to finish up by saying, kind of roofing on that idea of optimism. I believe in the American people. I believe that we all can find our way to create an America that works for all of us, where we all have dignity, where we all recognize that the dignity in each other, where conformity is not the rule. And that we just respect each other's right to live our life as we see fit. And that that is the I trust each and every one of you that you know the best way to live your life. And I'm here to support that. As long as in return, you also have that same idea that everyone else around you knows the best way to live their life. And that when we do that for each other is when we will all succeed. And if you want to learn more. ⁓ or follow the campaign, you can go to LaurenCollin for Congress.com, L-O-R-E-N, C O L I N for Congress.com, and my handle on all social media platforms, which you'll find me everywhere except for X. So Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, ⁓ Blue Sky Threads. I forgot one, Facebook. always Lauren Collin for Congress, L-O-R-E-N, C O L I N for Congress. If you type that in, put it in your browser. You will find speaker-0: Excellent. Thank you so much for taking time to come and talk to us about your campaign and your thoughts and your vision for specifically LA. LA really does mean a lot to me. I have a lot of very close friends that live out there and just the, I've always wanted to be in animation and film industry and stuff like that. So it means a lot to me that I was able to go out there and I did my time. And now I get to. Talk to you and and and see like the brighter side of what's coming for LA. So thank you so much for taking time to come and talk to me. speaker-1: Absolutely. Your platform is amazing and having this type of conversation is really groundbreaking. Carlos, you're doing something amazing. So I I just appreciate that you you allowed me to share this space with you. speaker-0: I appreciate that more than you will ever, ever know. And with that everybody, we're out. speaker-1: Have a good one. Coconut trusses.