Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 5/20/26: Kamala Official Reveals 2024 Loss, Elon's Ex On 2024 Election Space Lasers, Dem Caught Boosting Republican

Transcript

5/20/26: Kamala Official Reveals 2024 Loss, Elon's Ex On 2024 Election Space Lasers, Dem Caught Boosting Republican · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
• 0:05
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• 0:07
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• 0:29
  Speaker 1: dot com.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: The Democratic National Committee autopsy that they claim to have
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: performed has yet to be published, but Rob Flaherty, a
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: top official with both the twenty twenty Biden campaign, the
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty four Biden campaign and then the twenty twenty
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: four Kamala Harris campaign, is with us here to discuss
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: the kind of interview that he gave with the autopsy
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: crew and also how he would write it if he
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: were the main author of of this report. So you
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: can read his piece in The Bulwark. It's titled Here's
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: what I told the DNC autopsy, And I really do
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: think it's worth reading because Rob, I think you tried
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: hard to say, like, look, I don't want to come
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: off as being too defensive here. We lost the goals
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: to win. We didn't do that, so therefore we failed.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Here are the decisions we made, here's why we made them,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: and take what you want from it, because we need
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: to learn lessons from that. What's been the reaction, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: then we'll go through a bunch of different sections of it.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: What's been the reaction from Democrats since this kind of
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: went viral among the operatives set?
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what, I have to be honest and
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: thanks for having me by that. Yeah, it has been
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: a surprisingly constructive conversation, which I think has been heartening.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: There have been folks who have disagreed with my takes.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: That is totally fair, and I think they've offered constructive
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: feedback and also I think speaks to why I think
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: the party can handle an autopsy discussion.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, people I.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: Think came to this with in pretty good faith, which
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: I appreciated.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: No, that is a good point. And before we get
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: into the thing, do you have a theory? So the
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: theory that they're kind of floating now for why we
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: haven't seen the autopsy is that it's really poorly done
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: and it's embarrassing, which is kind of funny as an excuse. Yeah, like,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: then do a better job, maybe like hire somebody to like,
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know, run it through chat GPT and tell
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: them to clean it up or something. I mean, it
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: doesn't sound credible to me as an excuse. What is
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: your theory for why we have not seen this document?
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: And how do I get my hands on it?
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: How do you get your hands on it? So that
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: is basically my understanding is that the final product was
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: not up.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: To not a friend of Ken Martin's or something more or.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Less the guy who was doing it. He was doing
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: it as a volunteer sort of outside of his consulting hours.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: It was sort of done not at the quality to
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: you to expect. I think, you know it is.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Do we know how much Democrats spent on this too
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: bad to release support?
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: I don't know how much was spent.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: In an audit of it?
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I seriously, you know, I think that it is
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: worth them taking the time to do it and do
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: it well if that is the case, and you know,
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: but to my understanding that is what it was. Something
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: i'd chat GPT summing is like what came out.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: But anyway, I think they're just trying to hold their
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: breath and do well in November and hope everybody forgets
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: about it. So but let's put up D two to start.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: So at the top, you write, my biggest lesson from
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: the twenty twenty four election is that tactics don't add
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: up to a brand, and a brand is the most
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: important thing in politics today. Without a brand that people
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: genuinely feel is connected to your candidates deeply held beliefs,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: your tactics will add up to nothing. It's clear in
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: retrospect that what Democrats needed for our damaged brand in
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: twenty four was a primary in which a real, well
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: funded candidate running an economically populist campaign could have teed
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: off against the Biden administration. Even that wouldn't have been
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: a sure bet. But quote, a primary and a one
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: week shotgun primary one hundred and seven days out from
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: the election are not the same. Once we were in it,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: we were always playing around the edges. You also talk
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: about the role that the unfolding genuside and gods have played,
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: and we'll get to that toward the end of this
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: for people who are wondering if we're going to talk
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: about that. But so on this point, I thought that
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: was really interesting. It's and it's like, obviously this isn't
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: up to you whether or not there's a primary, whether
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: or not Democrats nominate an economic populacet who's running against Biden,
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: But I think for our viewers it would be it's
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: got to be interesting to hear somebody from your world
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: come here and say, yeah, you guys are probably right tactically,
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: like forget putting us, forget the substance and what's better
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: for the world, But like, so tell us why you
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: think tactically, even from your position within the party, an
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: economic populist running against Biden would have been more successful.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Here's the thing. I
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: think if Biden stays in and gets primaried, voters were
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: behind Biden at that particular time, and so that was
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: sort of one of the things that made it challenging.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: I think if Biden decides not to run, although once
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: he had a debate, well yes, I mean that changed
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: the trajectory of the race, but I think once he
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: if he had he had decided not to run. You know,
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: the administration was very unpopular, and the advantage of a
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: primary would have been that someone not attached the administration
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: could have sort of honestly critiqued the administration without being
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: tied to it in the same way. I think that
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: was one of the main things that dragged Harris down was,
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: you know, she was part of an administration that was
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: hardly unpopular, and there was really no easy way to
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: distance herself from that, and so I think probably that
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: is the only, you know, the best shot we would
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: have had.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: And so one thing I thought was a missing and
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: maybe I didn't quite spot it in the piece, was
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: a look at why so well, let's back it up, like, yeah, so,
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: why was the brand as bad as it was? Is
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: the overlying question. And from our perspective, as we were
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: covering this campaign, we were watching as the most kind
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: of popular elements of the Biden administration, which were kind
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: of his pro labor record and the kind of anti
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: trust record, and you know, Lena Khon going after powerful
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: companies and saying this is the reason why you're paying more,
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: and we need to go after these companies. And then meanwhile,
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: you'd have people like Reid Hoffman and Mark Cuban going
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: on air and saying, no, actually, she's not even gonna
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: higher Lena Khan. These people are crazy, and so then
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: you wind up with without that populous brand. So it's
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: one thing as she's stuck. She can't really run against
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Biden on anything that Biden administration has done that she
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: wants to disagree with. But these were things that the
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Biden administration did that people liked. It's the only time
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: she ran against Biden, it seemed like, was to kind
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: of cut Lena Khan and her folks off at the knees.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: So how do you think that played into the campaign?
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: So?
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: I think as a general measure, you know, voters were
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: super economically concerned in this election, and you know a
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: significant amount of the media we spent was on sort
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: of economic policy rit large. I mean, that is sort
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: of the advertising. But I think there was something about
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: the overall sort of brand of the campaign, the sort
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: of like I usually say, qua that it added up
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: to it didn't really click for people and didn't make
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: that believable. And you know, whether that was about Lena
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: Khan or anything in particular, or breaking up anopolies or
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: any of that. You know, I think there was sort
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: of a sense of people couldn't quite tell what the
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: campaign was about a lot.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Of different places, like if Kamala's gone onto the stump
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: and saying these companies are ripping you off, We're going
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: to break them up, We're going to prosecute them. Doesn't
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: that give her? And I'm here with Lena Khan, I
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: do like.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't necessarily know that like sort of
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: campaigning with specific administration officials like that, you know, uh
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: would have been particularly helpful in But I do think
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: there is a general from my lens, the sense looking
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: backwards that you know, people were feeling economically populist, and
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: so you know, the more that the campaign would have
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: been focused on that, the better off we would have been.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: But there were a lot of reasons in a short
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: period that you know, we didn't end up going in
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: that direction, and you know, internal debates and things like that.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: But you know, ultimately, I think if you look backwards,
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: that was one of the reasons the brand was was
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: a little all over the place in.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Hard to reach. There was this moment where for a
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: few days she was using that kind of populous language
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: and then Cuban and Hoffman pushed back and they drop it.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: What's it like inside the campaign? Like how do the
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: like you see Mark Cuban on TV or you see
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Read Hoffin complaining, like just internally, how does that? How
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: does that filter into decision making where she's changing her language?
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: You know, it's hard for me to say like that,
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: you know, on that specific feedback loop, I don't know
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: that I was part of it, So you know, I
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: don't I don't have a total lens on like what
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: the osmosis is on all of that. Certainly, you know,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: there was a broad pushback when more populous language was used,
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: there was broad pushback when less populous language was used.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: And you know, I think all of that gets taken
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: in and gets taken on board. But again, I think
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: we sort of found ourselves in this position where there
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: were just a lot of equities pushing on the campaign
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: and and I think we uh sort of went down
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: a lot of different rabbit holes, uh, and you know,
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: found ourselves sort of adding up to not the quite
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: not quite the whole of some of our parts.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Right, made an interesting YouTube comment which kind of dovetails
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: with the whole Joe Joe Rogan controversy, which you were
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: part of, and we can put up D three here.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: You wrote the whole country is on YouTube and uses
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: it in ways that feel completely out of alignment with
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: how I use it, which brings us to that whole
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Rogan thing. I somewhat infamously was involved in the Rogan negotiations.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: We agonized for a long time overdoing it. I was
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: in favor of doing it, but it was a close call.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: I didn't think it was going to be a clean interview.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: In fact, I thought the best case scenario would be
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: a draw. But we just needed an attention event, which
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: in my mind made it worth doing. Actually, I should
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: have you reading these since this is.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: Your Yeah, I'll do that. You can get the audiobook.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: So on the first point before we get to Rogan,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: that YouTube is interesting as somebody who lives in it. Now,
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: what did you describe and what is the kind of
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: gap between the way that kind of professional Washington Democratic
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: campaigns understand YouTube and the way that it's actually exists
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: in the world now.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, the vast majority of YouTube is
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: watched on television.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Sets, Yeah, which is crazy.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: People not know that that is not how I use it,
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: but that may be how you at Homer using it.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Hello more than me, more than more than half of
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: our audience according to our data. Yeah, and watches it
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: on television.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: And that's and so that is the thing one. And
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: I think that people in campaigns often miss that it's
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: television for people, and so the kinds of programming and
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: the kinds of content it is, you know, long form
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: and conversation, all those kinds of things, and so and
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: also it's dominance. Eighty percent of the country goes there
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: at least once a week. I mean, it is it
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: is the place where I think the election is going
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: to happen in twenty twenty eight, and so it's really
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: important from a campaign perspective. That impacts where you go
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: and do interviews, the people you talk to, those kinds
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: of things, but also how you do your own content.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: And as you guys know, building a YouTube channel is
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: very hard and how easy it takes all the time,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: and so you know, it's it's a challenge for campaigns,
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: but I think it is really going to be a
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: core battleground for political campaigns going forward.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: And so the channels that have built audiences like Rogan
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: for instance, who's gone in a kind of different direction
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: last year year and a half or so, that was
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: a big thing, and you were directly involved with this
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: this question, so you know, why did you think it
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: would be slightly a good idea and what were the
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: counter arguments and walk people through why. Yeah, it ended
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: up not happening.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: So we landed on wanting to do the show and
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: talked to his team quite a bit and you know,
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: pretty much agreed to you know, no holds barred. We
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: had some time limits in place, but you know, because
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: we had a schedule and things, how long. I forget
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: what we said, but he said something like we only
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: wanted an hour, and I think we had not we
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: said we did not, Ever we didn't say that, So
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: I think we had discussed a longer engagement.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: He normally does three to four.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think it was probably shorter than he
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: normally does, but longer than he said that we were
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: asking for, if I recall correctly. And look, you know,
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: I think the reason why was, you know, I think
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: the vice president wanted to talk to the audience, but
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: also we just I mean, I say this and the
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: piece I think we started to really lose the race
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: when we lost the attention war with Donald Trump and
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: we needed something that would shrink it up. But I
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: think it was going to be a challenging interview. I mean,
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Rogan is not easy, and he'll ask questions that you're
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: not used to getting and you have to get comfortable
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: with being uncomfortable, and a lot of political figures, that's
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: that's a hard thing. And so you know, I figured
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: if we did the show, you know, he would he
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: would get a couple of marks on the vice president.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: I thought the vice president might get a couple of
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: marks on him. But you know, it was a sort
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: of team discussion and we net it out on wanting
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: to do it, but the logistics just sort of didn't
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: work out.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: The idea that all attention is good is net good?
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I think it is an interesting one because I remember
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: thinking at the time, if I were you guys, and
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris was my candidate, I would actually not tell
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: her to do Joe Rogan because she might be okay
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: in five minutes on MSNBC or CNN or even Fox,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: like a little pushback here and there, but like she
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: didn't strike me as somebody that for an hour, an
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: hour and a half is going to kind of win
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: over the audience because that's just not the style that
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: she's kind of come up in. But I think I'm
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: curious for your take on this. I think it has
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: created a kind of obstacle course or litmus test of
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: sorts for candidates that is actually a good thing. That
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: the new kind of bar that you have to clear
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: to be a national candidate is can you sit down
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: for ninety minutes in a free form interview and come
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: across as a normal person? And I think, like, I
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: think Bernie did really well with that in twenty sixteen
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: and beyond, even though he just says the same thing
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: millionaires and billionaires, but it's charming because you're saying it
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: for fifty years exactly. I think AOC could do it. Yeah,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: she's because she lives in that kind of you know,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: she calls audibles all the time. She's like, yeah, she's
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: not that scripted. Brokanna does it all the time. He
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: goes to these places, Buddha Judge. I could probably do it,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: but like getting new, some can do it, but I
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: can imagine that some others couldn't. Like do you agree,
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: like like the new is that the new bar to
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: entry into national politics, that is that you have to
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: actually be able to sit down. I agree.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: I think that's downstream from something that is really the
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: important thing, which is, like everyone is consuming tons of
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: content produced by people who are really close to that
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: production of the content, and so they're used to super
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: authentic stuff, right. They know Ryan Grimm, They know where
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: you think, and they know where you stand, and you
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: believe what you're saying, and so you're up against all
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: of that. And so when you show up and you're
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: a politician and you're like, here, am I free talking points?
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: Like people, the bullshitometer has gotten higher. And so one
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: of the indicators of that is, yeah, can that person
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: have like a real conversation that doesn't sound like they're
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: reciting the party line over and over and over again.
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: And so I think that is an indicator and has
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: moved people in that direction, and I think it's going
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: to be a factor. And you know who wins in
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty eight.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So let's talk in Emily's honor. We'll talk about
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: the famous transad that she's with them, not with you. Actually,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: let's let's play it first and then get into your
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: take on it.
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah, he murdered a father of three sentenced to life
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: in prison. Kamala Harris pushed to use tax dollars to
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: pay for his sex change. I made sure that they
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: changed the policy so that every transgender inmate.
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: Would have access.
• 16:47
  Speaker 6: It sounds insane, because it is insane. Kamala was the
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: first to help pay for a prisoner's sex change.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: The power that I had, I used it in a
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: way that was about pushing for the movement. Frankly, and
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: the agenda.
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: Kamala's agenda is the them, not you.
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: I'm Donald JD. Trump, and I approved this message.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: And so you say two interesting things on this one.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: You say that contrary to kind of popular opinion, that
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: actually wasn't the most devastating ad the most devastating one,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: whereas where they just kept playing clips of Kamala Harris
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: saying quote, Bidenomics is working, and it didn't match up
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: with how people felt. But then I want to so
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: what you write about this one. You say there was
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: a debate about how to respond. You said a literal
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: rebuttal would have been a loser. I absolutely stand by
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: this decision. Look at the twenty twenty five elections in Virginia,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: where Republicans made trans issues the core of their advertising strategy.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: It failed because voters didn't find it relevant. The Trump
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: Camps trans ad quote worked at getting attention because it
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: was shocking, not because it was effective on its own.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Its real power came from its implied storyline, which in
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: the digital era is more critical than ever. The lesson
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: When you get hit with an attack ad like this,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: ask not what claim it's making, but rather what brand
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: it's built. The best response isn't to relitigate the fight.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: It's to fight harder on the underlying issue that voters
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: actually care about. So let me try to channel Emily
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: since she's yeh, couldn't be here your eavily impression, And
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: what I think she would say is, okay, maybe that's
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: all true, but also you are wrong on the issue.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Eighty to ninety percent of the public disagrees with you
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: when it comes to particularly the sports question, and they
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: don't even believe that you believe what you're saying, and
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: so then it goes to a fundamental credibility gap between you.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: So I think she would probably say, yes, you're right,
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: like it's a distraction from the overall economic issues, But
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that you're not totally wrong on the
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: question itself. And as long as you cling to your
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: position that is this eighty twenty ninety ten Republicans are
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: going to keep hammering you on it.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: So I take the point. I think there's a couple
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: of things. One, this ad was, you know, not the
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: only thing that was on rotation in the same at
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: the same time. So the theay them ad is running
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: against an immigration track that they're running, That is running
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: against an economic track that they're running. And the through
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: line in all of that is Kamala Harris is focused
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: on all kinds of wacky stuff and not the stuff
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: that you actually care about. And so that's like actually
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: what people are hearing in real time. And so if
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: you go in and make a counter ad about that issue,
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: you were just raising that issue when the thing people
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: are actually saying is Kamala Harris doesn't actually care about
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: the stuff I care about. And so we tested, like
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: we've made spots that rebutted it directly. You know, it
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: was a Trump era policy. No, the Vice President doesn't
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: think that or whatever. But none of that worked as
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: well in groups and testing as just talking about the
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: economy because that sort of grounded it, and all right,
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: she does. She's focused on things that actually matter to me.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: And so this idea of have a firefight on an
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: eighty twenty issue where we were always going to be
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: coming from behind, when we could have just talked about
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: the thing that was actually the problem, that, to me
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: is why I think the response to the transad, to
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: the extent that we responded was was the correct one.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: And I stand by you know, it was funny James Blair,
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: who's you know, Trump's sort of political maestro after the
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: Virginia election, said the basically a version of what I
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: said there, which is Republicans talking about this issue, even
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: if it's.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: In eighty twenty, makes them look weird, makes them look weird.
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: It makes them look a little a lot of place.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: Spanberger did more directly to dispatch the issue. But you know,
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: that clip is on the Harris clip is on tape.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: There's not much you can do to get rid of it.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: So you know, the best thing to do is to
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: pivot to the issue people care about.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: And maybe there's two separate questions like once it's fall
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: of twenty twenty four, Yeah, you're already kind of locked
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: into a position. So At that point, you either defend
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: a position or you just don't talk about it. Yeah,
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: do you think and channel Emily again, Democrats need to
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: change their position on this so that they're not locked
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: into an eighty twenty ninety ten firefight.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that like this is a this is
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: obviously a tricky issue. The big thing is like when
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: you think about transgender people, generally, like the American people
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: are not for taking rights away from transgender people. I mean,
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: Democrats have won on this issue. It's ancient wisdom. But
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: Roy Cooper was governor of North Carolina on this issue,
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: the bathroom fight. On the bathroom fight, Mike Pence was
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: becomes vice president because he's so popular in Indiana because
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: of a bathroom bell.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: And so it is interesting that the bathroom is good
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: turf I think for Democrats because people like, of course,
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: if you identify as women, whouse the women's room. Yeah,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: where but the like high school and college sports, Yeah,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: it ends up not being good turf. The only place
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: that well maybe child surgery. Yeah, there's there on that too.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: And I think that a this is like not I
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: don't think Democrats really campaign on this issue very much.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: It certain gets put on them, but like the broader
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: thing is like, yes, those are very unpopular things. There
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: are edge cases. I think it is okay for Democrats
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: to take heterodox stands on this stuff. But overall the
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: thing that I also don't think, you know, I think
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: that sometimes people read this as you know, we should
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: totally run away from transgender people and all that stuff,
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: and I just don't think that's where the American public
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: is got it.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: All right, So on Gaza, we can put up D
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: four you right here. Given the Biden administration's position, Gaza
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: was an impossible issue to communicate around. Protesters drove coverage
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: away from campaign events, Digital creators or even supporters were
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: afraid to say anything nice about Biden because their comments
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: sections would get rocked. For many voters watching the horrific,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: painful footage out of Gaza, it became a moral question
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: when we didn't have a good answer for in ways
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: that may not be reflected in a poll. It meaningfully
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: reduced enthusiasm. As one person from the campaign told me,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: we spent the entire election with a giant rotting fish
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: around our necks. This was one of the places where
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Biden era not his age, mind you, but as politically
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: led him to misread the politics. His frustration with Dan
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Yahoo was well covered and spilled out into the public,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: but Biden just misread the nation's support for Israel as
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: an endless fixed object and missed how much the ongoing
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: visuals were seeping into the public consciousness. You're seeing the
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: politics move today. Senators who would never have considered it
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: in years In years past are now signing on to
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: the Sanders resolution to block offensive military aid to Israel.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Rama manual of all people is raising doubts about funding
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: the Iron Dome. But we were seeing this emerge on
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: the ground during the campaign. My hot take is that
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: the eventual Democratic nominee in twenty twenty eight will support
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: conditions on aid to Israel in one way or another.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: And this section of your piece is important just from
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: a news perspective, because there was a dispute where there
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: were reports that the autopsy did include basically a section
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: about this and basically saying this. Then there were some
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: claims to the contrary you ran digital. You were very
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: high up in the campaig Like if you told the
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: autopsy folks this in the meeting, it clearly is then
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: reflected in the autopsy itself, whether we've seen it or not.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: So did you tell them this directly in your conversations?
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: I don't remember if I told them this directly in
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: the conversation. I don't. I don't remember enough to say,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: you know, I don't think that there's any like smoking
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: gun in there about you know, the impact of of
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: Gaza on the election. I know that they had the
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: conversation with activists. I think my understanding is the guy
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: sort of was like, of course, it's you know, yeah, yeah,
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: we've got it, kind of like being polite. So I
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: don't know what was in there, and I don't know
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: if what I.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Find out would be really exactly We'll find out, you know.
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: Again, I don't think. I think there are a lot
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: of people who want to hear somebody say Gaza was
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: the reason, and I don't think it is the reason.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: But I think it is a factor in a reduced
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: enthusiasm for the vice president and obviously for for Biden
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: before that.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: And I remember from my own perspective to and it
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: wasn't because of the comment section, and I think it
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: was more of the kind of just moral question. I
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: was really supportive of a lot of things that, like
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: I said earlier, he was doing on antitrust or on
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: labor and sometimes on trade, you know, but I would
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: probably I would mute my praise because like he's also
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: on a daily basis slaughtering and participating in the slaughter
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: of children, sizeable numbers of children every single day, like
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: a child, like every hour or so for a year.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: And so it did make it very hard to be like,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: this was a great NLRB ruling. Yeah, we should all
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: and we should all celebrate it even though it's good
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: NLRB ruling. So was that something you noticed intuitively or
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: did you, like, did you have interactions with kind of
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: influencers and other surrogates who you were trying to get
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: to like go rah rah and they're like, you know what,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: so walk us through, Like how how did you come
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: to this conclusion? Which I agree with, I'm just curious
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: how you came to it.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: Also, So I think it's two things, like here's this
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: is the thing if you actually look at the polling,
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: the polling said that GAZO was not a top issue.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: But there's just a One of the things I think
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: is a theme of the entire piece for me is
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: that there's just some stuff that like is out lives
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: outside of numbers, right, the tactics of the campaign might
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: be one. Well, yeah, the tactics of the campaign you know,
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: sort of moved people on particular issues, but didn't actually
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: move people on how they were going to vote. And uh,
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: and so one of these things is is you know,
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: there's I think this was a I think that probably
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: dampened enthusiasm well beyond you know, what would show up
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: in a poll, and it was stuff like that. You know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: creators who would be willing to be supportive would say, well,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: it's it's just sort of not safe territory to do
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: it because I'm going to get criticized or you know,
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: would themselves be critical of President primesition on it. And
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: so it did. I think it. You know, it had
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: a material impact in a way that I think was
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: difficult to measure, but was sort of passes a smell
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: test on you know, obviously was there.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: And so to sum up, because I know you've got
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: to we've got to run it sounds like an outsider,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: anti establishment populist who's willing to be critical of Israel
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: from your perspective, would have done better in twenty twenty four.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: What does that mean for twenty twenty eight? Like, where
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: do you what's your elevator pitch to candidates and campaigns
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: who are looking at twenty eight.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: So I think a couple of things on this one.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: I don't think we can overestimate just how pissed off
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: the American people are, and they are mad about the
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: status quo. Democrats are benefiting from Donald Trump being on
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: the wrong side of this right now, but that's not
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: a permanent thing. And I think that a winning twenty
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: eight twenty eight campaign is going to look a little
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: economically populist. I think you are seeing that, you know,
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: the politics of a number of different issues are pushing
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: people in the direction. Particularly Ai, I think is going
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: to be one of the driving issues of twenty twenty eight.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: And then yeah, I think you know, a huge factor
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: in the Democratic primary is going to be this conversation
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: around Israel. I mentioned ram Emanuel ram Manual is talking
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: about conditioning aid to Israel.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Uh, which like no more?
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like I mean, which sort of tells you that.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: You know, there's a there's a middle name is Israel.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, literally, I didn't know that. So, you know, I
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: think that that's going to be a factor. But I
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: do think economic populism and big you know policies and
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: then delivery on the other side are going to be
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: really important.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: And now Rob has his own YouTube channel the way,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: so you're you're you're figuring out. It's called Nobody Knows
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Anything and so you can find it Nobody Knows Anything shows,
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: So help Rob out, bring them into the into the
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: YouTube world. But much appreciate it. Thank you for being here,
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Thanks Ryan, Thanks everybody. Elon Musk's a former girl friend,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Ashley Sinclair, launched some rather provocative accusations recently. Let's take
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: a lesson, and.
• 29:07
  Speaker 7: Then October rolls around, and in October Elon tells me
• 29:20
  Speaker 7: that he is ready to release his in his words,
• 29:24
  Speaker 7: anomaly in the Matrix. And I am like, oh, like,
• 29:29
  Speaker 7: who's that? And he says that he has ten thousand
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: lasers in space referring to his satellites. I say, because
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: I am like rather uncomfortable and I know the gravity
• 29:42
  Speaker 7: of what he's trying to tell me right now, I say, wow,
• 29:46
  Speaker 7: finally a focus on the Jewish vote. He keeps going
• 29:51
  Speaker 7: and he says, you know, this is not something on,
• 29:55
  Speaker 7: this is not a piece that they'll see on the chessboard,
• 29:58
  Speaker 7: and I straight up tell him, I say, I would
• 30:04
  Speaker 7: ask more, but I really don't want to be deposed to,
• 30:07
  Speaker 7: which he says very wise. Shortly after that, you know,
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: he's involved with America Pack and all of this other stuff,
• 30:17
  Speaker 7: and he's sending me some internal data from America Pack
• 30:22
  Speaker 7: real time delta vote metrics, and I am just like,
• 30:26
  Speaker 7: how the fuck do you have this sort of data.
• 30:29
  Speaker 7: You don't get this from door knocking.
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: Then to have.
• 30:34
  Speaker 7: Arguably the most powerful man in the world who is
• 30:38
  Speaker 7: sending me things about, you know, using his space technology
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: in the election. I should also say that I have
• 30:49
  Speaker 7: all of this backed up with many people with explicit
• 30:52
  Speaker 7: instructions should anything happen to me.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Okay, all right, Emily. So we've reviewed, actually and obtained
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: some of these text messages, and what Ashley Saint Clair
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: is claiming Musk claimed is true. And I say that
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: quite deliberately because there's a difference between Musk making a
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: claim and Musk's claim being true. However, what he says matters,
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: and her reference to depositions I think is telling. But yeah,
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: so he wrote to her tomorrow we unleash the anomaly
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: in the matrix. This is not something on the chessboard,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: so they will be quite surprised. Quote lasers from space,
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: and then she does, you know, tell her joke, referencing
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: kind of a Marjorie Taylor Green thing. Finally a focus
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: on the Jewish vote, and he adds, I have over
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: ten thousand layers lasers in space right now, and she does,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: in fact, then reply I would ask more questions, but
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: will keep myself from getting deposed, and Musk responds wise
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: with the laughing guy, and then then she says something like,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: you know, if your space laser's serious, the end up
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: being the anomaly and the matrix that make matrix that
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: takes back America, I will be convinced that God is
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: maximizing the simulation and so so like. So this conversation
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: did happen in early October while Musk was campaigning with
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Trump and Butler when they went back to the scene
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: of the attempted assassination. And I think what's really important
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: here is that Rogan has also talked about this right
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: where he said, Musk left the election night gathering in
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: mar Lago very early saying we've got that, we've got
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: the data, like it's over he won and and Trump
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: and this is I think very important. Historically, Trump believed
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: that Musk had done something interesting. He didn't know exactly
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: what he didn't know, I don't I don't know if
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: he knew how shady it was, if it was straight
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: up rigging, or if it was some type of whiz
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: bang thing that Trump can't understand. But Trump believed that
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Musk had something secret and magic going on there, these
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: space lasers like that, you know. And and I think
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: that that had something to do then with Trump inviting
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: him in and making him co president for the first
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: several months. So that's why I think his claim there
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: is so it's so noteworthy because whether or not you
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: believe it as a rational viewer, Trump believed it and
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Trump acted on it.
• 33:31
  Speaker 7: Those are interesting dots to connect.
• 33:33
  Speaker 8: I'm curious what you make of what he could have Like,
• 33:38
  Speaker 8: what could we be talking about here, because his claim,
• 33:44
  Speaker 8: like you're saying, it's a claim to you know, someone
• 33:47
  Speaker 8: who he's romantically trying to impress and whatever else? What
• 33:54
  Speaker 8: even you like, I'm not a loss for words like
• 33:59
  Speaker 8: what Elon Musk might have acted? Like what is his
• 34:01
  Speaker 8: anomaly in the matrix? Actually in a concrete way, What
• 34:05
  Speaker 8: could this technology be, what could this data harvesting be?
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: I have no idea, right, I mean, at worst, and
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: what Trump might have assumed it was a straight up
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: hacking of voting machines. Like in this whole you know,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: every accusation is a confession type of situation. You know,
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: I think Trump spent the last four years marinating in
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: these ideas about voting machines getting hacked and Hugo Chavez,
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: you know, coming in and manipulating the twenty twenty vote
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: even though he was dead, so that Biden would beat Trump.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: You know, he he may at this point, you know,
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: be convinced of that himself. So if he thinks that
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: Democrats are doing it, he'd he'd be like, oh wow,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: I've got my own guy who can do it. There's that,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: or there's like, you know, he's got some you know,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: data is extraordinarily powerful as a campaign tool. So maybe
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: he maybe all he means is that he's got some
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: way that where he's breaking election laws and with the
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: way he's like accessing voter data and merging it with
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: other maybe publicly available but difficult to find data and
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: then analyzing it in a way that is helping him
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: and then doing this giant lottery and paying people to
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: go out and register people to vote. You know, maybe
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: he means it's that and it's a more kind of
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: benign kind of law breaking than the straight up hacking.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: We don't know. The fact that Ashley Sinclair immediately thought
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: depositions are coming suggests that there probably should be some
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: like we should this is something we should. These are
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: questions that ought to be answered.
• 35:45
  Speaker 8: I would think, well, musks seem to agree that depositions.
• 35:49
  Speaker 7: Could be coming when.
• 35:51
  Speaker 8: He responded with what the laughing face?
• 35:53
  Speaker 7: Algy?
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Why why? Whise yes, don't ask? Don't ask any more questions?
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: But yeah, is it just trying to impress Ashley Sinclair
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: For those who don't know, like they end up having
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: what one baby together and then there's a there's some
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: agreement that they have they've had a falling out. Ashley
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: was recently on Crystal and Crystal Kyle and Friends, where
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: she talked about this what also what is this new
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: genre where people are like doing makeup.
• 36:24
  Speaker 8: And getting ready with me genre?
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: It's like should we should we like adopt that?
• 36:30
  Speaker 8: Here? You think I was just going to say, yeah,
• 36:32
  Speaker 8: I was just going to say, because you're you're already
• 36:34
  Speaker 8: on TikTok, so it's perfect, I'll film it for you.
• 36:36
  Speaker 8: Or it could be a selfie, but when Ryan spends
• 36:39
  Speaker 8: ten seconds making sure that his face isn't shiny, that
• 36:41
  Speaker 8: will be the right ready with me.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: Gw R.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: I blinded people today.
• 36:48
  Speaker 8: But yes, this is how Ashley Sinclair has has chosen
• 36:50
  Speaker 8: to spill all of these like consequential inside details about
• 36:56
  Speaker 8: or that she learned as part of the I mean
• 37:01
  Speaker 8: it's not she wasn't really part of the conventional conservative movement.
• 37:04
  Speaker 8: That's more like some people diristically referred to it as
• 37:07
  Speaker 8: conn inc. That's more established and it's a lot of
• 37:10
  Speaker 8: the groups that have been around since, like William of Buckley.
• 37:12
  Speaker 8: But she was part of this kind of new maga
• 37:15
  Speaker 8: conservative world and has explained about influencers and aftroturfing that
• 37:21
  Speaker 8: she saw kind of up close. You have to take
• 37:23
  Speaker 8: some of it, I think with a grain of salt.
• 37:25
  Speaker 8: There's the virality incentive, but also I think she knows
• 37:28
  Speaker 8: that some of us could end up in court, so
• 37:31
  Speaker 8: she's probably speaking with some judiciousness and kind of explaining
• 37:35
  Speaker 8: peeling back the curtain on how the new maga media
• 37:40
  Speaker 8: world operates, and then also because she was so close
• 37:44
  Speaker 8: to Elon Musk for a brief period of time, a
• 37:46
  Speaker 8: little bit about how he operates, and again with some
• 37:49
  Speaker 8: really consequential information.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think with Ash's and Color, they thought they
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: had an NPC. Turns out they didn't. Yeah, so I
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: think we're going to continue to find out war. But
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: up next May, Vong will be joining us and Emily
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: will be departing. Good great to see you this morning,
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: and have a good trip back to DC.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: Thanks.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: Joining us now is my Wang, who is running in
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: the California's seventh congressional district, which is encompasses Sacramento, California.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: My thank you so much for joining us here.
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's great
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: to be on here today. Good morning to everyone.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's I think an exciting day in democratic politics.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: You just had two kind of big wins for progressives
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: in Pennsylvania, Chris rab And in Philadelphia and then Bob
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Brooks up in the Lee in the Lehigh Valley. But
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: California has such a interesting system with these top two
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: that it ends up producing all sorts of bizarre kind
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: of game theory going on in these races, and so
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: I wanted to start with this really bizarre development that
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: we're seeing where it seems like your opponent, incumbent Doris Matsui,
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: is trying to push into the general election a Republican,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: which and I think people will be very confused when
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: they first hear that. They'll be like, wait a minute,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: A Democrat is trying to get a Republican elected to
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: off or into the primary. What on earth is going
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: on here? But we can put up this first element
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: up on the screen. So Andrew Solinders spotted this. I
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: did too, and I just forgot to kind of tweet
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: about it. So the way that campaigns signal to super
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: packs legally, so they're not allowed to coordinate with a
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: super pac, But what they can do is on their
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: website they can put language that anybody in the public
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: can read, but it's clearly aimed directly at a super pack.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: So this says what voters need to know. Zachariah Wooden,
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: this is the Republican. Wooden has a record of serving
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: the community. This is what voters need to know. According
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: to Doris Matt Sue, fighting to advance Trump's policies as
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: endorsed by major GOP groups like the Republican Party of Sacramento,
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Republican Party of San Joaquin, Reform California, and Carl Demo.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: And then it goes on, it goes into real kind
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: of details about what it says Republican Republican leading NPP
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: likely primary voters and that's no party preference, need to see, read,
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: and see on the go, that Zachariah Wooden is the
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: strongest Republican in the June second primary. So there's a
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: lot of coded language going on there. So City councilwoman,
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: can you can you walk normal people through some of
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: this coded language? So what does it mean first of
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: all to say that quote voters need to see, read,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: and see on the go, Like what what is she
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: trying to stay there?
• 41:02
  Speaker 7: Yeah?
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: Well, first let me just say, you know, this is
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: one of the reasons why I'm running. You know, established
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: politicians like Doris Matsui, who's been in office for twenty
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: one years, actually her and her husband, it's a dynasty.
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: They've been in office for almost forty seven years, almost
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: half a century, would rather see a Republican in power
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: than pass the torch to the next generation. Right, And
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: what you're seeing in that in that on her website
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: or they call it a red box, is basically directing
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: her corporate donors and her supporters to run Miller's to
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: increase name ID among the Republicans and basically to turn
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: out the vote for Republicans in hopes that she would
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: knock me out. In the June primaries. In California, we
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: have this thing called Jungle Primary, and it's the top
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: two vote getters that actually advance to the November election.
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: And we are seeing pools where we are literally neck
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: to neck, and that she's losing the Democratic and the
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: decline state base because people are really fed up and
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: tired of the established man. And she knows this. Her
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: political apparatus that that's around her knows this, and so
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: they're trying a different strategy to see if they can
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: knock us out out of top two.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And also I can help the code for people too.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: See read and see on the go is my understanding
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: means C means basically television ads. Read means mailers mailers,
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: and see on the go means I think mobile.
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: Basically mobile, Yeah, digital ads.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: So they're being very specific. So she this is Doris Meethui,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: a Democratic incumbent telling her, as you said, major corporate
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: backers is super PACs, please take out television, digital and
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: mail ads for a Republican so that I don't have
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: to compete with my Democratic opponent in the general election.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: So let's talk about why why doesn't she want to
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: compete with you? What? What? What are you? What are
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: you running on? That would be a such a significant
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: difference from the Matt SUEI dynasty.
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say, you know, a big part of
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: this is because voters across Congressional District seven. But I
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: would say voters across our country is incredibly tired of
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: established politicians that created the conditions for what we have today.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: You know, I'm entering the space as a community organizer
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: or someone who grew up here in South Sacramento, and
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: I don't have the luxury of waiting on the sideline.
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: There's this unspoken rule. I am a local elected, I'm
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: on the city council, and before I was on the
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: city council, I was a community organizer. But among local
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: electives there's this unspoken rule that you don't do what
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: my van is doing. You wait your turn, and you
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: don't take on an incumbent right, And I wasn't even
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: waiting my turn, didn't even think that I would be
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: running for Congress one day. But I understand the day
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: to day struggles of our working families. I am married
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: to a son of Mexican immigrants. I am a daughter
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: of mong refugees. I have families and loved ones that
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: wake up every morning afraid of that are going to
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: be separated by eyes. I have a family and loved ones,
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: and so many residents in our region that's struggling to
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: get by, to pay their mortgage, to put food on
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: the table, to fill up their gas tank. And it's
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: so important that we have elected leaders in the halls
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: of Congress that understand the day to day struggles of
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: our working families. The difference also between me and my opponent,
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: the incumbent, is I don't take any corporate pac money.
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: And as I've been saying, when you're funded by a
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: corporate when your campaign is funded by a corporate credit card,
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: you have debt to pay. You won't move with a
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: sense of urgency on Medicare for all. You won't move
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: with a sense of urgency to close detention centers that
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: are separating family and loved ones, and you won't move
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: with a sense of urgency to stop endless wars. The
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: congresswoman hasn't signed on to legislation to block bombs, and
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: under her leadership, ice budget has trouble under her leadership.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: And so the district itself, what are the what are
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: the what are the main issues? Economic land is Sacramento
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: is California is overall, compared to the ret of the country,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: pretty wealthy, a pretty wealthy state. Sacramento has always struggled.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: So what are you what are you pitching, you know,
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: to the people of Sacramento. It's going to kind of
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: boost them up.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: Thanks. So Congressional District seven, just for those that's listening
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: for the first time, in terms of what that district is,
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: it is Sacramento, but it also now encompasses after a
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: Prop fifty encompasses rural areas to El Dorado, Placerville in
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: the Central a little bit of the Central Valley, a Lodi,
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: engulf in San Juanquin County. And I would say to
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: you Ryan, you know, affordability is still a huge issue
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: for so many of our working families across the congressional district.
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: I hear about how hard is it for our families
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: to basically put food on the table to fill up
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: their gas tank. And I know that so many of
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: our working families right now, their premiums are going up,
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: and so affordability is still a huge issue. But on
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: the campaign trail for the past seven months, what I've
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: been hearing is that we got to get money out
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: of politics. That so many of these congressionals see are
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: bought by by corporate packs or by a pack, and
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: so they want to see someone independent, someone going in
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: there fighting for the people. And I have a track
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: record of that as someone that's a community organizer. Our
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: campaign doesn't take any corporate pack and when I get
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: to the halls of Congress, I want to be fighting
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: for the people that I represent.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: And as you mentioned, a PAK has endorsed Matt Suey
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: over the years, has donated heavily to her her campaign.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: She hasn't signed on to the Block the Bombs Act.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: I'm curious how how far you go on that question
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: at AOC, and even J Street recently said that the
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: US should not be subsidizing any weapons for Israel, offensive
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: or defensive, and if they want weapons, they can buy themselves.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: Where do you where do you come down on that question,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: because others have gone even further and said no, like
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: they should actually be sanctioned and as long as they
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: are engaged in human rights abuses, we should not be
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: selling them weapons period, even even if they're paying for them.
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, my position is, you know, I'm the
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: only candidate in this race that have called what has
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: happened is genocide. Even before I made the decision to
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: run for Congress, I led the effort for ceasefire resolution
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: in the city of Sacramento. And there are palesint new
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: families right here in our region that have lost entire
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: generation of their family because of this genocide. And you're
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: absolutely right. The congress woman has taken money from APEX
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: and she has consistently voted for more and more more
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: tax dollars to buy weapons for Israel. My position on
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: is that we should not be spaying our tax dollar
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: defensive or offensive because they are, you know, committing a
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: genocide and human rights violation. So that is my position.
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: And a big part of this is also because I
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: am a daughter of Moan refugees. My parents came over
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: here because of war, and I understand the generational trauma
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: that that war has on families, the displacement and the
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: harm that that caused for so many lives, And so
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: for me, Gaza is a test of our moral clarity
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: and courage in this.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: Moment and what would it take to get to a
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: place where so yesterday, for instance, there were there were
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: reports that the International Criminal Court had issued an arrest
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: warrant for It's more Ben Gavier. Ben Gavier responded by
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: by demanding the ethnic cleansing of another village in the
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: in the West Bank. Where do you stand on sanctions
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: for officials like that?
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I support what calling diabstment and sanctions absolutely,
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: that is That's always been my position.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Now, immigration is also a huge issue in your race,
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: as I as I understand it. Where do you where
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: do you come down on the question of what ICE
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: is doing, whether ICE should continue as as an agency,
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: and if it shouldn't, what should be what should immigration
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: enforcement look like?
• 48:57
  Speaker 7: Yeah?
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: Thanks for that question. I fundamentally believe that we should
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: abolish ICE. I don't think you could reform an agency
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: that is killing US citizens, killing people on the street.
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: You can't reform an agency that pulls people over based
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: on the color of their skin, the language that they
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: speak where they work, and it is corrupt and immoral.
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: And the congress woman, my opponent, has taken money from
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: ICE contractors and people with huge contracts to help set
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: up IC detention centers, and she's often been late and
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: ineffective to the issue. And we do really need a
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: bold and courageous leadership in this moment to dismantle this
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: and moral agency. And look, I always share ICE didn't
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: exist before two thousand and three, and it was under
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: I ins For me, at the end of the day,
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: ICE is really not about enforcement, but it's about terrorizing
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: our black or brown, our immigrant and refugee communities. I
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: think what we need to do as a government is
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: to invest in robust, nimble, and strategic administrative state that
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: includes our immigration system right established an accessible pathway to
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: legal status for our TPS recipients, our dreamers. I have
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: family members who are our daka, and I think that
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: we have to really modern We have to, you know,
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: make sure that we have a pathway for them. But
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: we also, like Congress also needs to increase funding and
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: staff for a federal agency. We've got to modernize our
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: immigration courts. With digital case systems, reduced visa, a silent process,
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: the backlogs. And the last piece is we have to
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: and and all inhumane deportation and detailed detention programs. So
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: we have babies and families being separated from their from
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: their parents, and that shouldn't be happening in the United States.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: We need to be closing all these detention centers. That's
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: literally profiting. These detention centers are profiting from these detentions.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: What about on the question of UH, the AI data
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: center moratorium that Bernie Sanders has has proposed, Then in general,
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: how would you how do you see what do you
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: see the federal government's role in kind of regulating A
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: and AI safety.
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I support the the AI data Monitoring monitoringum that
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: Bernie and AOC has put forth. I often share, you know,
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: when I'm trying to explain AI, even to like my elders,
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: I share with them, you know, just like we don't
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: expect the oil industry or tobacco or alcohol industry to regulate,
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: so we shouldn't allow AI and that one and the
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: one person and billionaires and a very small handful of
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: rich people to decide UH, you know, the future of AI.
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: It should we should put a moratorium on it, and
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: we should make sure that we have safeguards. And so
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: that is my position.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: And what about on the wealth tax? I know California
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: is putting forward this kind of five percent one time tax.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Rokanna has got a primary challenger because he he supports it.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: Where are you on that? And more more generally, what
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: can we do about you know, incoming and wealth and
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: quality when it comes to tax policy.
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I actually support the tax on the ballot that's
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: on the Balid measure. I think it's incredibly important that
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: we make sure that the billionaires pay their fair share. Uh,
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: And I think I think there's there's several things we
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: can do. One we could fund it through by closing
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: corporate tax loopholes and raising tax on billionaires on in
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: large corporations. That's always been my position. I think no
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: one ever just becomes a billionaires. They become a billionaire
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: by the working class families, and it's incredibly important that
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: they pay their fair share.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: And can you talk a little bit about a little
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: more about your your background and how your how your
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: family got here, because I think it is I think
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: it always is interesting to have people in Congress who
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: whose families have been on the kind of other side
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: of the American gun. You know, how did so how
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: did your how does how does your family get here?
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: And how does that kind of shaped your politics?
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: Thanks? Thanks for asking that question. Well, you know, I
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: didn't come into politics through a dynasty like my opponent
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: or through money. I am a daughter of Moan refugees.
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: I was born and raised here, but my parents came
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: here as refugees. I am the proud daughter of Moan refugees.
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: I'm the oldest of sixteen children in my family, the
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: first to go to college. But for those that may
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: not know about the Moan people, during the Vietnam War,
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: the United States the CIA recruited the Moon to fight
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: in guerrilla warfare to stop the supply the weapons supply
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: through the ho Chi Mintrail. And the Moon people were
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: mountain people and we knew that region better than anyone else,
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: and so the United States recruited the Moon people to
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: fight in the secret War of Lows during the Vietnam War.
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: And as you all know, that was a war that the
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: United States should had not engaged in. And when they
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: withdrew their troops, there was persecution and genocide of our
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: people because we allied with the United States, and I
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: often shared that our people fought for democracy before we
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: even stepped foot onto this country. Over forty thousand villagers
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: and among soldiers ages tended up because they actually recruited
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: young boys. Ages tended up to fight in the Secret
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: War of Lows. That's an under account. Actually we know
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: that the number is much higher than that. My parents
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: were actually the villagers that were impacted, and Loos is
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: one of the most bomb country in the world. My
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: parents fled the war, was in the jungle for about
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: six to eight months across the mang Kong River, and
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: then made it to Thailand to seek refuge. And then
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: they came to the United States and they settled here
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: in Sacramento. And my grandparents didn't have any formal education.
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: They were just villagers, and so they rented land and
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: elk grow which is in Congressional District seven, and they
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: grew vegetables and they were farmers under the farmers market
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: at the Farmer's Market under the Freeway, this very big
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: popular farmers market in Sacramento. You just say the Farmer's
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: Market under the Freeway in downtown people know exactly what
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: farmer's market that is. But growing up, I remember just
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: helping my grandma, grand Paul so fruits and vegetables. And
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: then my parents came here as teenagers, went through our
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: public school system, but didn't graduate high school because they
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: couldn't speak English, and so they went to alternative school
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: to get their ged. And then I went through a
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: public school system, grew up on food stamps, and my
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: high school teacher told me that if I went to college,
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: it was going to be my one take it out
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: of poverty. And so I left because of poverty. But
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: poverty is also the reason why I came back home.
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: I went to UCLA for college, and after I graduated
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: from UCLA, I realized that you know, what good is
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: it to have two masters from UCLA, from a public university,
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: one of the top public university, when your family and
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: your community is still struggling. And so I came back
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: home to help mom and dad pay the bills, take
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: care of my siblings. And then when I came back
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: to Sacramento, I looked around Ryan and realized that not
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: a lot had changed, that so many of our underserved
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: communities were lacking resources, and so I had learned about
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: organizing community activism when I was in college. I worked
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: for APALLA, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, did some
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: organizing voter education outreach for the Obama campaign in LA
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: when I was a grad student, and took those skills
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: and started just building here in South Sacramento and started
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: an organization called Hip Mong Innovating Politics. Were a grassroots
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: organization at that time. We were a scrappy organizer with
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: money in our shoe box underneath someone's bed, but we
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: became this political force in Sacramento, organizing our parents to
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: fight for their students' education. Fast forward, I'm on the
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: city Council now, always fighting for our families and our communities.
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: And yes it's no secret that I am the progressive
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: on the city council. But we've been able to get
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: a lot of work done, securing millions for so many communities,
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: passing the first ever Sacramental Children's Fund Balid initiative. And
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: I never thought that I would would be here today. Ryan,
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: If you told me on May twentieth, because today's May
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: twentieth and twenty twenty five, that I would be running
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: for Congress, I probably wouldn't believe you. The decian to
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: run for Congress didn't happen until the fall of last year,
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: and a big part of that was my anger and
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: frustration at the lack of responsiveness and fight from our congresswoman.
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: And you know, I don't take running against incumbent lightly.
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: I always knew was going to be an uphill battle.
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: But I don't have the luxury of waiting on the
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: sidelines while our democracy is on fire and our families
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: are living in fear. And I want to be able
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: to look back from this moment tell all my nieces
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: and nephews and my two boys that when Trump was
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: in office, I did everything I could to protect their future.
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: This last thing for you, was there anything that kind
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: of flipped you from kind of normal person in the world,
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: going from you know, you know, a poor working class
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: then you go to college that flipped you and politicized you.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: Was there was there a moment where you're like, yes,
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: I need what and what what was that?
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: It was? I was sitting in my sociology class and
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: I read one line about the moon people and Ryan,
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: you know, when growing up in Sacramento, I really growing
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: up in Sacramento as a daughter refugee, I really internalized poverty.
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: I was that good, obedient Mong daughter. I cook that clean,
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: I took care of my siblings. But I never understood
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: why my family was poor. And it wasn't until I
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: went to college that I read one line about the
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: Mong people that we were recruited by the United States,
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: defining the Secret War of Loves, and everything clicked for
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: me of like displacement, why I grew up in poverty.
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: And that was the moment that I realize that oftentimes
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: the system it's fixed for the wealthy and not for
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: all of us. It's not the reason why we have
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: the outcomes that we have today. And that was the
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: beginning of uh my political awakening. I remember going back
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: home that day to my dorm and calling my and
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: I'm translating from Monk to English, and I had called
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: him because I had to do a paper in my
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: sociology class. And I asked him, I said, Dad, did
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: you know we were involved in the Vietnam War? And
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: he said yes, And I asked him, I said, how
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: come you never told me? And he said to me, well,
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: you never asked. In some ways, when I reflect back
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: on our conversation, I think my father and my mother
• 59:23
  Speaker 5: really wanted me just to focus on school, and they
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: didn't want to talk about the war. They didn't want
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: to be re traumatized, and they just wanted their kids
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: to go to college and you know, find a good
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: job and become self sufficient. But reading about my people
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: was that political awakening and recognizing just us and paralism
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: and the injustice that we have in this country among
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: so many people. And so that was the first chapter
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: of my political awakening.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Really, And as I'm sure you know this too. You know,
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: Henry Kissinger, one of the architects of that specific policy.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: One of his famous quotes is it may be dangerous
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: to the America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal. Uh.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: And and it goes to the way that the United
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: States often, you know, finds people who have the their
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: their own particular interests which happen in the moment to
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: align with the United States among people, of course, you know,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: over a long period of time oppressed by the Lauching
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: government and had hostile to various Vietnamese factions, whether they
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: were communists or non communists, and so the US is
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: able to then come in kind of exploit those sentiments
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: and say arm them, get a move in, and they
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: feel like, oh, this is our shot at our own liberation.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: But as Henry Kissinger himself will tell you, that alliance
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: is fatal. The United States has extremely consistent practice of
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: betraying those people after they're no longer Uh, no longer
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: is ful? Say anybody interesting that if you can actually win,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: to have somebody in Congress who who who understands that
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: in a visceral way.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And when we win, I would be the first
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: monk ever in Congress. I don't believe we've ever had
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: a home person in Congress. And so I know that
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: our community is incredibly excited about the campaign, and uh,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: we're excited to but I'm running. You know. Some folks
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: have said, my, you to be the first long congress woman,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: and I said, actually, I'm running to try to address
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: the first month's rent. But yes, I am also long
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: and apologetically long as well and incredibly proud to be
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: long American.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: And the only other person that maybe has that visceral
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: understanding of course in Congress is ilhan Omar. And she's
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: the correct me. If I'm wrong, your supporter of your campaign.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: We're also, we're hoping hoping a lock in that endorsement.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: I'm not support of your camp, but she's been a
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: supporter of you, said, she's said nice things about you,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: but it would be it would be. You know, it's
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: difficult for an incumbent to endorse against another incumbent. So
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: we'll see if we'll see if that happens. But we
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: know that she's said kind things about your previous work.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: Uh my bang, Thank you so much for joining us,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: you know, really appreciate it.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: me on.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: All right, that'll do it for us today. I'll actually
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: be back tomorrow with Sager for a bro show, so
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: don't miss that. See you then,