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Erin Petrey on Campaign Finance Reform and Kentucky’s Future · Breaking The Meta

• Breaking The Meta: you you Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. My name is Mike Winson. Today's guest is running in the 6th District of Kentucky. Her name is Erin Petrie and we are so excited to sit down with her and find out what she hopes to do for her and her district and why she decided to run in the United States House of Representatives. Hello Erin, thanks for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so... The way I usually like to start, if you wouldn't mind, especially for people that don't know Kentucky at all, but even maybe some people in Kentucky, if you could let people know what areas of Kentucky are a part of the sixth district. Yeah, absolutely. So Kentucky has six congressional districts ⁓ and the sixth district, so the district I am running for is, so Lexington is kind of the heart, the epicenter of that. So Lexington is the seat of Fayette County. Now, Kentucky has is one of the states with the most counties in the country, right? So we have 120 counties. So, yeah, so we have 120 counties in our state and this particular district has 16 counties, 14 total, like whole counties and two partial counties. ⁓ So we are mostly ⁓ central Kentucky. So it's kind of the bluegrass region, if you will. So you could call this kind of the bluegrass district. ⁓ And then we go as far east to Powell County and Estill County. So Estill County is funny because they call themselves I'm going to try to get this right, where the bluegrass kisses the mountains, right? So we just kind of pop up just at the bottom, right? And then we kind of go ⁓ as far west as where kind of I grew up, which is Anderson County, Lawrenceburg, ⁓ down to the south, we've got Richmond, and then we also have Richmond, which is Madison County, and then up north we have Flemingburg, Fleming County. So it's that whole section there. ⁓ Demographically, ⁓ we are anchored by the University of Kentucky in Lexington, which is the largest university here in Kentucky, where I got my master's, about 750,000 people, know, ⁓ median age around 37.2. There's more women than men and more registered Democrats than Republicans. So it's kind of funny. I'm sort of the median voter, if you will. Well, that sounds that that's actually really cool. So Would you mind starting off by giving us just a little background on yourself and also why you decided to run for Congress in the first place? Yeah. So I'll make this less stumpy speech, you know, because I don't want to, you know, get too bore, you know, bore folks on this. But listen, I grew up on a farm in Lawrenceburg in Anderson County down the road from the Four Roses Distillery. So I grew up like running around the woods. People always say, what kind of farm? I'm like, well, we didn't really grow anything except bills. we had, we had some horses, pawns, you know, but I, very much grew up in the country, you know, like, ⁓ you know, I know how to, to, to drive a bush hog. So, ⁓ you know, have they have picked up plenty of cow pies, you know, and the neighbors cattle got out. ⁓ but you know, grew up on a farm. My dad's family's from hazard in Eastern Kentucky. My mom's family's from Maysville in Northern Kentucky. And, ⁓ my dad was a small business owner in Lexington. My mom was in the healthcare industry. She started out as a nurse and then went into pharmaceutical sales. ⁓ And I grew up in a house that they actually built. So that was pretty cool. I remember getting city water when I was a kid. I was talking to somebody about this earlier, because we have a terrible snow outside as I'm sure pretty much everybody who's experiencing this right now ⁓ has the same. ⁓ And so, you know, thinking about those times when we were like, remember when we had to wait for the truck to bring us water to the cistern and we could shower? Yeah. So, and this was in the nineties. So, but anyways, you know, my personal background, I always wanted to be a diplomat, right? I wanted to spread the word. about how amazing America is and democracy is around the world. So I did my undergrad at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. And then I did my master's at the Patterson School of Diplomacy at the University of Kentucky. And of course I graduated at the height of the recession, right? ⁓ And so I went to South Korea for a year, taught English in a public elementary school in Southeast Korea in a city called Daegu. And then I came back and I wanted to, you know, kind of... continue trying to get into a career that was focused on the Foreign Service and International Affairs. And I found myself landing a job as the Special Assistant to the Ambassador of Libya to the United States. And my job was to reestablish Libya's relationship with the United States after the revolution, after the overthrow of Gaddafi. you know, I mean, I was the only person to answer the phone. Let's be real. And ⁓ my third day on the job was Benghazi. No correlation. know no conspiracy. conspiracy theorist, I wasn't even there three days, I didn't even know where the bathroom was, ⁓ but had to help them manage that response and through that. ⁓ But then after that, I started to get into large scale infrastructure deployment. after that, I had a number of jobs that were focused on building everything from critical infrastructure like ports and renewable energy manufacturing facilities to hospitals, exporting US goods and services overseas, ⁓ electric vehicle companies. And then most recently I worked at Amazon Web Services making data centers less environmentally stressful. ⁓ So my job was to try to ⁓ push them for more transparency and efficiency and the other types of environmental metrics. ⁓ And then kind of on the other side is I've been known as that bourbon lady in this race because my... My ⁓ other half, it's like I do renewable, I always like to say like, do renewable energy and big construction during the day and at night I drink bourbon, it's necessary. ⁓ But I've always been, ⁓ I've been a bourbon writer for over, well over a decade. I'm on the board of bourbon women and spreading the good word of kind of being an ambassador for Kentucky is the thing that I care about a lot. And so I've done that. And ⁓ so yeah, so that's kind of who I am, what I've done. And you asked me another question, which was why, right? Why, yeah. You're like, You know, this is it's a question, you know, I've been it been getting asked, you know, ever since I was even considering it. Right. And I started considering it in November of twenty twenty four. I'd always been interested in public service. Right. You know, one to be in foreign service. And, you know, I've always been someone who's done a lot of community service and, you know, things work on issues like voter enfranchisement. But in November twenty twenty four, I had a decision to make. Right. And that was, well, I can keep sitting around complaining and rage posting to social, which is how I think we found each other. But ⁓ I was more, think, inspo posting, but you know, ⁓ or I could do something about it. And I've never been someone to just sit it out and let other people take over. ⁓ you know, I know that, you know, folks in central Kentucky have been pandered to for a long time. Mitch McConnell has done such severe damage to the state broadly and Andy Beshear, I'm sorry, Andy Beshear we have is who's great. I'm sorry. It's hard because also the person whose seat I'm running to replace is Andy Barr. So another Andy B. So I'm like Andy Barr. ⁓ someone said something very interesting to me yesterday about Andy Barr, ⁓ who's been in this seat since the last Democrat who was in the seat, who I actually used to intern for, ⁓ said, you know, Andy Barr is a placeholder until he latched, latched onto Trump. So Andy Barr really has been doing nothing. So I wanted someone in who was, you know, progressive, younger, effectual, you know, actually gets things done. And I've always had a reputation for, if you want something done in a sticky situation, give it to Erin, she'll do it. There you go. Well, and honestly, the last thing I'll say, though, is also I, Kentucky Democratic Party has been really struggling for a long time. one of the things, the Democratic Party broadly, right? The only thing that is polling worse than Donald Trump right now is the Democratic Party. And I want to try to reinvigorate and revitalize this party into what I know it can be and what it should be. So. Just to give people an idea of what your district is like, as you've been going around and talking to people in your district, what are those, what are the common pain points? What are the common things that most people in central Kentucky talk to you about, especially in regards to the federal government? I mean, I'll be honest with you. It's really the same as everywhere, right? It's returning to our ability to have a basic society and basic human dignity. Um, you know, it's why my campaign, I focus on three things, right? Affordability, access, opportunity. People need to be able to buy things. mean, gosh, I remember when my mom bought her house, it was what, $350,000, I think back in, you know, it 2005, I know, inflation. But now, I mean, her house is worth over a million dollars. And I mean, it's, it's one of these, I mean, great for her and her, her, um, you know, her property value, but you know, I'm, 38 years old. I just turned 38 a few months ago and it's infuriating that, you know, People like me, like, can't buy a house, let alone, you know, people who have kids and who, you know, are struggling to make ends meet. And we just keep getting hammered from every single direction. Healthcare is expensive, cars are expensive, fuel is expensive. And by fuel, I don't mean gas necessarily. I am talking about energy to heat our homes. everything is expensive, groceries, insurance. Every single thing that we do is just completely going up and wages are stagnant. So people aren't making enough money to pay their basic bills and they certainly aren't having the opportunity to build generational wealth, put their kids through school. People are struggling to make ends meet. ⁓ know, Kentucky also, you we've been at the end of cuts for rural healthcare. So my district is, a very interesting mix of both rural, suburban and urban. And we do have rural healthcare facilities here that are on the chopping block. And people have to drive for a while to get to hospitals, to get to clinics. And that's hard, especially if you have a chronic disease or if you have a kid who's sick. You know, people are worried about, you know, I think people are also just worried about the, from a federal level, right, democracy, right? The longevity of our democracy. I go to a bunch of county party meetings and people look at me and go, Erin, do you think we're going to have an election? And I'm like, y'all. We got two choices. We're going to have an election or we're going to have a revolution. There's really no other choice. So it's affordability, it's access, it's opera job opportunities, it's healthcare. And you know, there are those kind of more esoteric questions around like, I don't know if esoteric is the right word, but like, you know, the Epstein files, right? But that really goes into our government should be working for the people and by the laws of the land, not for the people in power. So It's making sure our democracy works, it's jobs, it's education, paying our teachers well, and it's also being able to afford everything from energy to groceries to housing and everything in between. Yeah, that is definitely a common response that I'm getting from a lot of people that I'm talking to. It's nothing like, you know, I don't think you're going to find a single place in the United States where that's not an issue for some people. No, that actually goes... perfectly into the next question, is accountability is an issue that we have, especially in this administration. But honestly, pretty much every politician, it's an issue that we're dealing with. So how do you see ⁓ accountability? How do you see accountability to your district, to the constituents when they vote you in? But how do you also see accountability playing out for Congress as a whole? Yeah. And so this is one of those things that goes back to one of my, mean, I dare call it a pet issue, but ⁓ it is a key issue for me. And, people talk to me, Erin, what do think about time limits? Erin, what do you think about this? what think about that? And I'm like, honestly, the number one thing that I would like to do in Congress, like day one, after making sure that I beat down the door of every single colleague and say like, Hey y'all, I'm here. ⁓ Because interpersonal relationships are the most important thing and that's how I've succeeded in my entire career because I've become friends with the CEO to the janitors or the receptionist and all the everyone in between because that's how you get things done. There you go. But it's campaign finance. We have to reform campaign finance. ⁓ You know, one of the things I hate more than anything in this process is raising money because I mean, I have to put a dollar sign on every single voter and every single person I've ever met and it's vile and I think it's disgusting. People in Congress are no longer accountable to their constituents, to their voters. It is only to their donors. And that's why I have personally committed to not taking corporate money. Now have people from high school I know and people from other places, Erin, it's really hard for me to give you money. you can't take corporate money, you got to stop saying this. And I was like, listen, I can either raise the most money or I can stick to my values and prove to people that I live by my values. And I would rather not have as much money and live by my values than have all the money in the world and just throw my values out the door. Because at the end of the day, the money, easy come, easy go, but your values, that sticks with you. And so for me, number one is going to be campaign finance reform. Because accountability has everything to do with who you are accountable to. And the only people who members of Congress and elected officials should be accountable to, ⁓ are the people casting ballots for and against them. But then also, I'm also the person who's like, if you email me or text me, like I will get back to you. It's on my website. ⁓ I'm very clear about the fact that I will have a very strong constituent services program and we will have like, ⁓ I mean, listen, did, I mean, I worked at Amazon, right? I've worked in startups, I've worked in organizations and you have to have an SLA, right? A service level agreement, which means There is a particular window of time in which you have to get something done. And I will put that on every single person in my constituent services office because people should not wait. We are there to serve them. They are not there to serve us. I'm assuming Andy Barr is very similar to most of the other representatives of the people that I've talked to are running against them and does not do things like hold town halls very regularly, if at all. Yeah. So Andy Barr, so here's the interesting thing about Andy Barr and here's an important thing about my seat is that it's an open seat. Andy Barr is running for Senate, so I will not be running against an incumbent. ⁓ Andy Barr though is known for not doing town halls. If he does do a town hall style, it's only for donors who are friendly. A friend of mine who's in my district is always like, I think Andy Barr hears my voice in his nightmares, because I'm always there yelling at him. And I was like, I know, He's retired. He loves to get out there and just bother people like that. But yeah, absolutely. He's also someone who, when voters reach out, when constituents reach out about issues, ⁓ especially if they are anti-Trump or disproving of Trump. The only thing that you get back is a horrendously condescending message that's like, well, you just don't know better. And it's like, well, Donald Trump is the greatest president all the time. I'm like. I love that you're asking for a promotion and treating us all like we're idiots. Yeah. That actually brings up another interesting question. So obviously division is something that regardless of whether or not it's quite as bad as we that it feels like it is in the sense of I think a lot of us are probably dealing with the same stuff and actually believe in the same things. But we've been taught in many ways to feel like it's us against them. Yeah. That being said, how is it going around your district when you interact with people that consider themselves Republicans and they find out you're running for a Democratic seat? Yeah, actually, it's really funny because I was at my financial advisor's office. This was a few months ago. And one of his customers knocks on his door and he walks in and he introduces me and says, I'm running for Congress. And he looks at me and goes, you look like a nice conservative lady with good conservative values. I was like. I'm like, is it cause I'm white? I was like, ⁓ no. ⁓ no. I don't know how to break the news to you that I'm a progressive Democrat. ⁓ you know, but I'll tell you, here's the thing that, that, and you know, I've met with, ⁓ Republican lawmakers, ⁓ here in Kentucky who, ⁓ I've, know, who have noticed what I'm doing and they, they they're like, you're delivering the right message. ⁓ You know, you're the only one in your race who's really delivering that that sort of right message for the for the moment but they're the ones who are like listen I ⁓ I like the fact that you're the only person who has private sector experience You're the only person who's actually gotten things done and so one of the things that I pride myself on in this race is that I'm the only one who has never worked, you know in a government setting or like for like policy setting. Every other person I've worked with has either worked in the governor's office. And I'm not saying these are bad. These are not bad positions. These are all necessary. And these are commendable experiences in public service. But right now, I feel like we need a different tack, right? So people who've worked in the governor's office, who've served in the House legislature, who served in like city council, things like that. And once again, not knocking their service. That's incredibly important. And I think it's vital to democracy, especially local offices. But I think now people want folks who are more focused on outcomes rather than party talking points. the fact that I have certainly, I mean, listen, I was in young Democrats in high school. ⁓ I got out the vote for Clinton and Biden in Allentown and in Gettysburg. You know, I've done phone banking for Clinton. You know, I mean, I've, been engaged at, you know, big supporter playing parenthood, things like that. But I'm someone who doesn't want to come in and build a political career. I want to. come in and rebuild our system, but looking at it from a standpoint of being good stewards of the resources that we have, right? So people can say, ⁓ well, I'm a fiscal conservative. And I was like, well, I'm definitely a fiscal conservative because I don't think that we should be spending money on things that we shouldn't be spending it on. But I do think that we should be spending money on things like education and public health, right? There's a difference between political conservatism and political... I'm sorry, fiscal conservatism and fiscal ineptitude and fiscal waste. And I think that we need to kind of change that around. And I was like, listen, I've run businesses, I've run billion dollar portfolios and projects before. I don't look at money as something just to fritter away. It is a necessary resource. And so I think that the fact that I have that experience and people see that and I lead with that, people have been actually very responsive to me as the progressive candidate. people resonate more with me because I'm not just, you know, spewing political talking points and saying, if you don't agree with the Democratic party, then you're wrong. I'm the one who's like, I just want to get things done for the right people. And I want to get your opinion on it too. And so frankly, you're always going to have the people who are going to be like, you're dyed in the wool, MAGA flag, you know, they've got the picture of Trump with the pad on his ear in their office, like, or is there screen saver on their phone? Like, You're always going to have those people, right? But those aren't the people I'm trying to work with, right? In Kentucky, we have such a significant amount of independents and unaffiliated voters, right? So, you know, and they're those people who left the Democratic Party because they were mad because they were like, y'all ain't doing anything. So I'm really trying to get those folks. I'm trying to get ⁓ kind of your traditional sort of private sector, you know, fiscal conservative Republicans. And those are the people who've been very responsive. And I've even had some people who changed their voter registration from both Republican and independent so they could vote for me in the primary. ⁓ That's cool. Because we have closed primaries, unfortunately, in Kentucky, which is stupid, but that's a different conversation, which I an update about. And I hate it so much. Yeah. Now, you obviously, as you talked about in the beginning, you have experience in foreign policy situations. this is a big one, obviously. ⁓ America's Place. in the world has changed dramatically over the last year. Whether you're talking our tariffs with the entire world or Venezuela or Greenland or our destruction and rebuilding and destruction and rebuilding again of trade deals that we have with people. Regardless of what this administration thinks, America's place at the world stage is going to be different after this administration is done in some way, shape or form. How do you see America's place on the world stage in foreign policy moving forward after this administration? So let's go back to I'm going to international relations nerd you a little bit. We're going to go back to international relations 101 or zero zero five for all my Elliott School of International Affairs GW people. So There are different types of world orders, right? There's a unipolar world where there's a hegemon, right? There's a bipolar world where there are two competing powers, right? So that's really that defined our Cold War era, right? Correct. Yeah. The USSR versus the United States. Now we've always kind of known that we've been leading into a multipolar system, right? But the United States really had prevailed as that sort of like the adult in the room, if you will, right? Not always the bully, but the adult in the room saying, all right, guys, no, no, no, no, no, no, We are going to be moving into a new world order in which the United States has lost so much of its soft power. One of the things that this particular administration has done very poorly, which I know that's a laundry list, but I think frankly, the most dangerous thing And I'm being very, very clear about this. The most dangerous thing that this administration has done is to erode American soft power and the value of American cultural currency. People do not buy Nikes because they are the best shoes. They buy Nikes because they are Americans and America means something. It means cool. People don't go to McDonald's because it's the best tasting food. They go there because it is cool, because it is American. People seek out the American movies because they are cool. They like American culture. But now we are eroding that. People will not want, we have sullied the brand. I mean, we have completely ruined this brand. And so for me, this next phase of the world order is going to be one in which we'll be more multipolar. I think that we will need to shore up organizations like NATO and the United Nations and double down on our commitment to these international organizations. So it is less likely for someone who is tyrannical like Donald Trump and that there his administration to come in and shake that up in the future. That's also what needs to happen from a our legal foundations as well. Right. Someone asked me recently. ⁓ They said, well, do you see anything as a silver lining in this administration? And I said, absolutely. And the reason why is because the Trump administration, I frankly think it would have been better for Trump to get reelected in 2020. All right. I've heard that before. Because Donald Trump then spent four and a half years stewing and, you know, working on this project 2025 and having just getting older. Oh God. Yeah. And, but also the fact that- He had these legal teams looking at every single fissure and crack in our system to see how it could be exploited to see how far he could go. And the good thing is, is that we've essentially taken a black light and put it on everything. And we are seeing all of those blemishes and stains and all the things that we were just too blind to see, maybe unwilling to see, didn't need to see because they weren't a threat before, but now they are. And so this is our opportunity to actually go in and say, listen, this has happened here. How can we prevent this from happening? Let's look at our constitutional amendment that limits presidential terms. We didn't need that until it was a problem. So there will be some referendums that come out of this. And I do think that there will be at least one constitutional amendment that does come out of this process. Yeah. I've definitely talked about the difficulty that we will have in terms of anyone trusting anything we say, especially after just specifically the EU. mean, we did a whole trade deal with the EU. And then when he wanted Greenland, he's like, ⁓ you know, I'm to put more tariffs back on you because you didn't give me Greenland. We are going to be. I the thing I will tell you, the thing that drives me nuts over everyone, they're like, he's a master negotiator. Like, you just don't understand it. Like, you don't get the long play. And I was like, Okay, let's, let's look at this. ⁓ You're telling me I don't get the long play of a person who before he was president was worth like nothing. Like he had real estate assets, right? He's only enriched himself because he has been president and been able to tweak the rules. Now, Donald Trump has put so many small businesses out of business. He has ⁓ screwed over so many municipalities and so many people look at Trump university. Do we just forget that? Trump state. ⁓ God. that he can't, the fact that he's not allowed to ⁓ run a non-usada, ⁓ not a non-profit, but ⁓ he can't raise money for charity in New York anymore forever because of what he's done. These are not long-term plays. He is a megalomaniacal narcissistic ⁓ I don't know, twat. Can I say twat here? I don't know. It's a British thing. People don't know what it means. He is just, he doesn't know what he's doing. Right. So when people say, ⁓ actually he has this long-term play, right? Like, no, he doesn't. And someone asked me, I was meeting with the AFL CIO, ⁓ with a bunch of their union leaders a few weeks ago. And one of them asked me, they said, Erin, what is the number one thing that you are most mad about at this administration? And I said, you know what? I could pick and choose. Right. There's a lot of messed up things. And this was before ICE was, you know, executing people in Minnesota. And, I said, you know what it is? It's the lack of strategy with anything they do. Donald Trump is so obsessed with the instant gratification of likes and retweets and I don't know. Truth snorts, whatever they do on true social, I don't know what it is, I don't go there. And I, that is the problem, right? Because everything needs a long-term play. And if anybody has been in business, if anybody has been doing anything, you have to have a long-term play. And it goes back to that saying, which is, when's the best time to plant a tree? Well, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second best time is to start right now. But you're not going to get any acorns or you're not going to get any lumber and you're not going to get any apples from that tree for another 20 years. So what are you going to do in the meantime? You're not going to say, ⁓ we're just going to, you well, we're going to get, we're going to have so many apples tomorrow because we planted a hundred trees. No, we're not. That's not strategy. What are you going to do to fix between now and 20 years? And that is my biggest issue. And he definitely has no desire to fix. He has only desires to enrich himself at this moment. Absolutely. And get a Nobel Peace Prize and have books written about him and all that other stuff. all silly. It's just like silly distractions. And I will tell you, and this is a little bit of advice for everyone listening too, right? Which is, you know, my mom, friends, people just like out in the street, they're like, oh my gosh, did you see? Did you see? And I'm like, listen, you need to stop looking at the news all day. You need to stop looking at social media all day. We know he's going to do crazy stuff, all right? You need to, we need to focus on turning that anxiety and that anger into action because we have a lot of work to do and spending more time and more breath and more energy and more dollars in every single brain cell that we spend on him is a brain cell that we are not using to organize against him in the midterms, to continue to find ways to help our neighbors, to help immigrant families, to help our homeless neighbors right now who are struggling because housing affordability is so bad. And now we have snowstorms and people. All of the shelters are at capacity. So that is my advice is that don't focus on every single dumb thing that he's doing, because all he's trying to do is get that rise out of you. I'm not surprised by anything. Venezuela, not surprised. Greenland, not surprised. None of this am I surprised by, because we saw the descent. We saw the trajectory. None of it's surprising. That's true. So just as a quick... you know, ⁓ future casting type thing. ⁓ So you get through, you get through any primaries, get November 4th comes along, you get voted in, January 2nd happens, and you are sworn in as a Congresswoman of the United States of America. What's the first thing you do? Well, I talked about this a little bit. First thing I do to every single door of every single colleague. Don't worry, I'll put good shoes on because those marble floors are very unforgiving in heels. I've been there. ⁓ I want to make sure that every single person knows who I am, has a name face, knows that I will be responsive to them on both sides of the aisle. I don't care if it's, ⁓ well, I don't know. Maybe we'll get rid of Lauren Bobert, but Lord have mercy. ⁓ even, even her to make sure they all know that I am there. I mean business and I'm ready to get work done for the right thing. And then the second thing I will do. is I will sponsor or co-sponsor legislation around campaign finance reform. There you go. Because that has to start. That has to start. That is at the absolute heart of every single issue we have. Private equity and venture capital owning so many homes. It's because how many of these companies just dumped money into elections. Andy Barr, great example from my district. I just wrote a sub stack about this. Andy Barr, since he was first voted in, has been the recipient, the top three, one of the top three recipients of mining money, lobbying money, since he got in. Do you know how many coal mines there are in my district? In his district? This many. Really? many. It's silly, right? And so he has this whole big coal, like the coal thing is the whole, it supports less than 10,000 jobs. The economy around coal in Kentucky is actually not one that was hurt by different administrations. The number one reason we've lost jobs in coal is mechanization. That started 70 years ago. The second reason is because Kentucky coal is not domestically competitive. It is not as good quality. It's also located in incredibly deep seams, which require a significant amount of time and effort. and money to get to. Meanwhile, he have places like Montana and Wyoming, which have huge seams right at the surface. Just grab it all up. And then you also have places like Virginia, West Virginia, Alabama. Those are places that also just have better quality coal. They have more coal. And it's just like one of these things where he is trying to sell a false bill of goods under the guise of nostalgia rather than real jobs and opportunity that people need. But because he keeps getting fat friggin checks. That's all he cares to talk about. And that's not what's going to fix Kentuckians problems. coal were, listen, I don't like fossil fuels myself. I will say it. I'm a sustainability person. I'm a climate change, climate change reel. ⁓ But listen, if coal were something where it absolutely could come back and it could like be this amazing boon. Listen, I'm a realist, right? I would look at ways to say, okay, how can we do this? And then eventually wean ourselves off. That's not reality. Right. And the whole reason that we're in this healthcare position that we're in is because after Citizens United, you see all of the money from healthcare companies dumped into both sides on the Democratic and Republican side. That is our biggest problem. Why do you think the defense industrial complex is so huge? It's because, and untouchable essentially, it's because there's so much cash being dumped right into these campaign pockets. And that's the other reason that I cannot take that money because I am not someone who can be bought and sold. Yeah, there is absolutely no argument for me on that. that is definitely something that a lot of us ⁓ talk about in this community, at least. ⁓ For anyone that has listened this far, ⁓ what is one thing that no matter we've heard a lot of stuff, but what is that one thing that you would want to make sure that someone comes away with after hearing everything? that you've set. You know, remember when folks were like, man, I want to get, I want a politician who I can get a beer with, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's stupid, but like, it's, it's silly. But what that really comes down to is that people crave authenticity and humanity. And what I want people to come away with after they meet me is that I am who I say I am. This isn't some Aaron mask that I put on. This is who I am. And this is something I've been telling people, you know, over my entire career, which is I'm like, listen, I'm not someone who puts on a suit, a, like a, well, not a suit, but like, as in like, I'm not someone who puts on, you know, my work face. And then I put it there and then I go home and I'm a totally different person. If you know me at work, you know me in life. If you know me in life, you know me at work. If you know me in life, you know me as a politician. If you know me as a politician, you know me as a person. And that's who I am. I lead with heart, but I also do a ton of hard work. And just know that I am the person who I say I am. And I always will. I've had the opportunity to sell my soul many times. There have been big checks that have been put on that before in the past. You know, I mean, I'll give you an example. I was offered a Schedule A essentially at a pointy position with USCIS, ⁓ under the Department of Homeland Security. ⁓ You know, it was like a, it was like a chief of staff or deputy chief of staff style job with the information officer there. And I looked at it and they were like, yeah, Erin, you know, you do this job for one or two years and then you can go anywhere in the federal government you want. mean, ⁓ a bit prescient that I didn't take that job considering everything that's happening. But I was like, I really appreciate that you trust me and that you appreciate my skills and ability. DHS, do not agree with how they do things, never have. And I especially do not agree with ICE. And this was years ago. This was like, what, I think 2021, 2022? And so I turned down a really cushy federal job because I did not agree with what ICE and the Department of Homeland Security were doing. I've been offered to work on projects in Saudi Arabia. No. We'll not do it. Do not agree with it. And so I will always stick by my values because like I said at the beginning, at end of the day, money is easy coming, easy go. You still have to contend with yourself and your own morals and values at the end of the day, once everything else is gone. And that's something we need more of in politics, 100%. Erin, if anyone wanted to learn more about you and even potentially support you, where could they find you? Yeah, absolutely. So I am on all the socials, but my website is erinpetree.com. E-R-I-N-P-E-T-R-E-Y.com. You can also just Google bourbon Erin and you'll find all my stuff. ⁓ I learned that strangely a few years ago. was like, ⁓ wow, all my bourbon writings there. ⁓ So I'm on Blue Sky Threads. I'm technically on X. hate it. ⁓ It used to be so good when it was Twitter. ⁓ I'm on TikTok, Facebook, Aaron Petrie for Congress. Everything is either Aaron Petrie or Aaron.Petrie. All of those are linked at the bottom of my website. And yes, even though I did say money does easy come, easy go, I still need money to run this campaign. So for me to be able to actually get into Congress and pass campaign finance reform, I need to become part of the system in order to change it. I'm not trying to raise the most money in my race. I'm only trying to raise enough. people who know campaigns and people who don't know campaigns, I'm going to say something real quick, which is every campaign needs three things. And that's money, message, and field. I need money in order to get my message out so I can hit the field strong and connect with voters. And that's what I'm trying to do. Yeah. And we'll make sure to put all that in the description below too. ⁓ Erin, thank so much for have sub stack, so which I need to add to my website. ⁓ Thank you, Erin, for coming on here and letting us get to know you a little bit. ⁓ Just for anyone else that has watched and listened this far, thank you so much. Please consider hitting all those buttons down below. It makes it possible for me to keep doing what I'm doing here, which is interviewing as many progressives that need things like visibility, because that is one of the ways that we struggle, especially for people that aren't taking PAC money, that aren't going for that kind of stuff. And just for anyone who's new that has never heard of Breaking the Meta, we're all about hard conversations. We're all about breaking that status quo. And we're all about fighting for the idea that all people, no matter your race, religion, gender, or identity, get rights, respect, dignity, and safety. And that's something I will continue to fight for while I'm doing this. ⁓ Again, Erin, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing what happens in the future. And for everyone else, thank you so much. And we'll see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye, guys. Thanks, Michael.