Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the world most dangerous morning to show to
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club. Charlomagne and God Angelie DJ NVY had to
Speaker 1: step out, and we have a very special guest in
Speaker 1: the building, aoc is Hell. What's up. How are you feeling.
Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm good. I'm feeling good. I mean in
Speaker 1: selection day, Yeah, there's nerves, there's a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: high stakes, but I'm feeling I'm feeling good. I'm feeling determined. Well,
Speaker 1: you're I think you're feeling good. I'm concerned about New
Speaker 1: York you know, Yes, I was reading your opponent, Tina Forte,
Speaker 1: has like a one percent chance. Yeah, something crazy like that.
Speaker 1: But you're here because obviously, like New York is in
Speaker 1: a crazy time right now. What do you attribute that too,
Speaker 1: especially looking at the governor's race. I mean, there's so
Speaker 1: much that's going on right now. I mean, and just
Speaker 1: socially and everything that we've been through in the last
Speaker 1: two years. I think a lot of that is culminating
Speaker 1: to this moment. I think there's a lot of media
Speaker 1: narratives culminating in this moment. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know what's up and down and down is up,
Speaker 1: But you know, there's a lot that's being discussed us
Speaker 1: about crime and public safety and healthcare and wages and
Speaker 1: union fights, and all of this is leading to this
Speaker 1: moment where we're like, it's it's like the stakes are
Speaker 1: really high, and especially out here in New York, we
Speaker 1: have Leezeldon running for governor. I work with him. He's
Speaker 1: a member of Congress, and this dude, he's not even
Speaker 1: pretending to try to be like almost like the way
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney tries to position himself as more modern Republican,
Speaker 1: he's not even trying with that. Like he's out and
Speaker 1: out anti choice. He wants to roll back all of
Speaker 1: the bail reform laws that we've worked so hard to pass.
Speaker 1: He's you know, it's Trump supporter, all of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: election denier, all of it. He was up here, he
Speaker 1: was up here. Actually, do you think the Democrats need
Speaker 1: a rebrand? And the reason I say that because I
Speaker 1: saw Stacey Abrams say that it's not that voters have
Speaker 1: a lack of enthusiasm, they have a lack of trust
Speaker 1: in the whole party and it's affecting all of them
Speaker 1: their individual races. What do you think about that? I
Speaker 1: think I think it's when I'm in these rooms with
Speaker 1: other members of Congress, I think there's a real struggle
Speaker 1: to try to for people to kind of express the
Speaker 1: policies that they want to express in a way that
Speaker 1: appeals to everybody, right, Like, that's the central problem is
Speaker 1: that you have Democrats that are running in very you know,
Speaker 1: less diverse, predominantly white, affluent, suburban communities, and then you
Speaker 1: have Democrats like me who represent the Bronx and those
Speaker 1: are two completely different universes with very just different realities. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but seriously, and so I think it becomes hard for
Speaker 1: the party to come together and say this is what
Speaker 1: we believe because they think some things are too extreme.
Speaker 1: I think other things are too conservative or off base
Speaker 1: or whatever. And yeah, I mean I think it can
Speaker 1: be hard. I think it can be hard to say
Speaker 1: what does a party stand for, Whereas a Republican party,
Speaker 1: a lot of what they a lot of the communities
Speaker 1: they represent are very unified, a lot more homogeneous, a
Speaker 1: lot more If you were running for Senate in West
Speaker 1: Virginia as a Democrat, do you think you would win
Speaker 1: me exactly like me at different things. Probably not, but
Speaker 1: you'd have to be a Joe Mansion type of democrat. Want.
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the thing, like yeah, but also a
Speaker 1: state like West Virginia was blue, like states in the
Speaker 1: South were blue. Not that some of them have been
Speaker 1: read for a very long time, but some of them.
Speaker 1: A lot of places turned red in the nineties, not
Speaker 1: in the fifties or sixties or seventies. They turned red
Speaker 1: in the nineties. And a lot of that has to
Speaker 1: do with with economic policy. A lot of it has
Speaker 1: to do with NAFTA, with trade, with a lot of
Speaker 1: union busting policies, and so, you know, you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to be like Joe Mansion. I do think that
Speaker 1: you can be more progressive in an economic sense. But
Speaker 1: but the fact of the matter is he, you know,
Speaker 1: that's who has represented West Virginia for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Why are people so scated progressives? Why does progressive messaging
Speaker 1: get turned into socialism and everything else? Like? Why? Well,
Speaker 1: I think our entire political system is beholden to big money.
Speaker 1: Both parties have really big factions that really answer a
Speaker 1: lot to Wall Street. And so there are incentives in
Speaker 1: both parties, like incentivized one hundred percent of the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: and then there are incentives in good chunks of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party to brand people who want to pursue guaranteed
Speaker 1: healthcare in this country as extreme, who want to pursue
Speaker 1: just widespread increases in wages which will cut the bottom
Speaker 1: line of a lot of folks on Wall Street, to
Speaker 1: brand us as too extreme, to brand us as just
Speaker 1: like way beyond the pale stream left, etc. And there's
Speaker 1: so much incentive to equate someone like me with someone
Speaker 1: like Marjorie Taylor Green right, like we're supposed to be
Speaker 1: equally extreme on both sides, except only there's only one
Speaker 1: of us here that doesn't believe American democracy should exist,
Speaker 1: and that's her right. But she gives off white supremacists prejudice. No, no,
Speaker 1: But you know, the right wing also weaponizes that because
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, equality feels like oppression. They're like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what do you mean. I can't I
Speaker 1: can't have these things that I've always had that were
Speaker 1: unjust right, and so um. You know, I think that
Speaker 1: there's just a universal incentive to to brand the things
Speaker 1: that we believe as extremists. But then you look at
Speaker 1: American history, and you look at the biggest champions in
Speaker 1: American history and honestly none of them were capitalists either,
Speaker 1: and Lucer King, Ella Baker, Malcolm X like, these were
Speaker 1: all people that were saying, we need to start really
Speaker 1: considering a world where people come before profit more seriously
Speaker 1: and what that looks like. Now, what do you think
Speaker 1: is going on with Kathy Hoko versus Lee Zelden? How
Speaker 1: do he manage to close the gap the way that
Speaker 1: he did? I mean, I see a ton of ads,
Speaker 1: But what do you think it is that appeals to
Speaker 1: people when it comes to pitting them against each other?
Speaker 1: I think there's two things. I think there's like the
Speaker 1: Republican operation itself, and then I think there's a media
Speaker 1: operation as well. When we talk about this narrative on crime,
Speaker 1: Lee Zelden I think really ascended on this narrative of
Speaker 1: crime and complaining about New York City and really leaning
Speaker 1: into this media narrative that New York City is like
Speaker 1: this terrible crime written place in a drive by in
Speaker 1: front of his house. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, I think,
Speaker 1: but the thing is is that when you actually look
Speaker 1: at what he's trying to do, he's trying to make
Speaker 1: this problem worse, not better. Because it was Democrats that
Speaker 1: in the last couple of months, we passed the first
Speaker 1: major gun reform bill in thirty years in this country.
Speaker 1: We're the ones who closed the boyfriend loophole where people
Speaker 1: who were committing domestic violence could get a gun, which
Speaker 1: was one of the biggest drivers of gun violence that
Speaker 1: in this country. He didn't want to do that, you know,
Speaker 1: he's this. He didn't do that. You know, it was
Speaker 1: really us in the driver's seat. There there were Republicans
Speaker 1: that joined on that, but it didn't happen until Democrats
Speaker 1: were in charge. And not only that, but but when
Speaker 1: you look at what is driving a lot of the
Speaker 1: gun violence in New York City, it's guns that are
Speaker 1: not coming from New York State. They're coming from Republican
Speaker 1: states that have rolled back all of their gun protections.
Speaker 1: They're coming from Georgia, South Carolina, Ohio. And Lee Zelden
Speaker 1: is trying to make New York's gun laws like those states.
Speaker 1: It's gonna cause our shootings to explode even more. But
Speaker 1: why has he caught up? You know in these polls,
Speaker 1: I think media, if you look at reporting the actual
Speaker 1: level of crime and any changes in the level of
Speaker 1: crime is in no way consistent with the explosion in
Speaker 1: media reporting on crime. And I want to be clear
Speaker 1: that any level of crime affects a family, it's trauma.
Speaker 1: But there is really no justification for reporting on these
Speaker 1: things going up three, four or five HU, which affects perception.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think that crime is up when
Speaker 1: we actually see that shootings are down, when we see
Speaker 1: that huge indicators on the most violent crime in New
Speaker 1: York City is down. Subway crime is up. But let's
Speaker 1: also note that subway crime is up after they committed
Speaker 1: so many more officers to the subway system. So that
Speaker 1: also tells us from a policy perspective, adding more cops
Speaker 1: of the subway isn't solving this problem. So there are
Speaker 1: other things that can solve this problem. We had the
Speaker 1: governor of here last week and one thing that concerns
Speaker 1: me about some Democrats is that they still seem like
Speaker 1: they're there. They feel like they can play nice with
Speaker 1: the fascists. Yeah, they're still talking about the Republican Party
Speaker 1: like that's the good old conservatives they grew up with,
Speaker 1: like this is different, and that concerns me. It's like
Speaker 1: if you can't see it for what it is, you
Speaker 1: know and can't call it out, I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's hard because I think some folks they feel
Speaker 1: stuck between a rock and a hard place, Like you're
Speaker 1: running in these areas where that may be more competitive,
Speaker 1: they have a lot more Republicans, but so like, I
Speaker 1: think there's an instinct there to play nice to it,
Speaker 1: to try to play k to win people over. But
Speaker 1: the cost of that is that we are normalizing increasingly abnormal,
Speaker 1: erratic violent behavior. And that is like they're just increasingly
Speaker 1: treating it as though these people are rash and they're
Speaker 1: really not. I mean, you look at Lee Zelden did
Speaker 1: not want to acknowledge he voted, and he wanted to
Speaker 1: overturn the US presidential election. Is why should anybody run
Speaker 1: for office if they're not even going to acknowledge the
Speaker 1: results of an election? Why why should people acknowledge? Why
Speaker 1: should he ask God forbid he win? Why should he
Speaker 1: expect his election results to be acknowledged if he refuses
Speaker 1: to acknowledge any election result he doesn't like, Right, you
Speaker 1: think the whole system is not fair, but then if
Speaker 1: you win, it's fair. That doesn't make any sense. And
Speaker 1: that's their whole game. And I think it's really important
Speaker 1: for people to hear too that they're because of mail
Speaker 1: in ballots and because of early voting. Many states have
Speaker 1: passed laws that don't allow those ballots to be unsealed
Speaker 1: until election day, which means those ballots aren't counted. And
Speaker 1: so there are a lot of races that are not
Speaker 1: going to be called tonight because so many of the
Speaker 1: ballots are mailed in, and Republicans have already indicated, like
Speaker 1: some of the major Republican lawyers, and they're already ramping
Speaker 1: up on this rhetoric that they're going to try to
Speaker 1: declare victory early or that any race that isn't declared
Speaker 1: by the end of tonight is going to be suspicious,
Speaker 1: and that they're going to try to, you know, claim
Speaker 1: essentially setting up this claim that they're going to try
Speaker 1: to say that it was stolen. Carrie Lake, she's running
Speaker 1: in Arizona for governor. She was saying that she wins
Speaker 1: no matter what the results are. She will not say
Speaker 1: that she'll accept whatever the results are. She'll only accept
Speaker 1: it if she wins. And that's what fascism looks like.
Speaker 1: That's what fascism looks like. It doesn't matter how you vote,
Speaker 1: I win, win or lose, I win. And it's very
Speaker 1: important that we call that out because here's what is
Speaker 1: dangerous about that. Let's say Carrie carry Lake loses today
Speaker 1: because of her rhetoric. She is priming people to have
Speaker 1: little God forbid MANI January sixth, at state capitals across
Speaker 1: this country. They're trying to exactly and they're out here
Speaker 1: like like this is Jim Crow. You know, people talk
Speaker 1: about fascism, they talk about, you know, Nazism, Nazism, but
Speaker 1: you know, even even then, a lot of fascist movements
Speaker 1: in the early nineteenth century took their inspiration from the
Speaker 1: Jim Crow American South fact. And the woman you're running against,
Speaker 1: she was there January. She was their January. So what
Speaker 1: was she doing there? I mean partying certainly, not having
Speaker 1: a tea party, right, because I want to be very
Speaker 1: clear she was she was an insurrectionist. She was an insurrectionist.
Speaker 1: She does not acknowledge the results of elections. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing is that if these folks are running here
Speaker 1: in New York City, they're running everywhere. I don't even
Speaker 1: think that should be allowed to not be allowed to
Speaker 1: run for office. If January six we were at the
Speaker 1: Capitol rioting and endangering people lives about being black and brown.
Speaker 1: If you've got certain things on your record, you're not
Speaker 1: even eligible for a certain job. But they can tell
Speaker 1: me how you have Ronda Santis sending out people, arresting
Speaker 1: black men who served their their debt to society. They
Speaker 1: served their time, they got out, they want to re
Speaker 1: establish their lives and be productive members of society. And
Speaker 1: he's out here arresting people um and upholding things like
Speaker 1: Florida basically has upholded upheld poll taxes, and so he's
Speaker 1: out here arresting people. Whether it is right or wrong,
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter he's is that he's scaring
Speaker 1: people enough to not turn out because they're afraid. So
Speaker 1: tell me how you have Ronda Santis out here arresting
Speaker 1: black and brown men in the state of Florida, people
Speaker 1: in general. And then you've got people out here that
Speaker 1: we're rushing the capital storm in the capitol in January sixth,
Speaker 1: and they're actually running for office in record numbers right now.
Speaker 1: Like if you were at McDonald's and you tour at
Speaker 1: McDonald's and beat somebody up, you can't go work at
Speaker 1: McDonald's after that. No, I don't like, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, I don't see how you can go get
Speaker 1: a job working in Congress if you're in public housing
Speaker 1: and you live in public housing and you have a
Speaker 1: friend come over and on the way out, your friend
Speaker 1: gets stopped and frisked and they find that there's you know,
Speaker 1: they have some weed on him. You could have You
Speaker 1: could be denied housing for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: You know. Actually, we have a bill that's trying to
Speaker 1: change this, but like that is the bar, that is
Speaker 1: the standard that so many black, brown, and poor communities
Speaker 1: are held to. But I mean, this is really what
Speaker 1: the tale of two America's is. And there's so much
Speaker 1: of a fear in talking about race, and I think
Speaker 1: sometimes this is one of the one of the issues
Speaker 1: that we have as a party is that we get
Speaker 1: too scared about this. And when you look look at
Speaker 1: like some of the most controversial issues that that we
Speaker 1: have as a country, and some of the most controversial
Speaker 1: issues that I think the Democratic Party struggles with, they're
Speaker 1: issues of race. When they talk about crime and mass
Speaker 1: incarceration and immigration, these are like the three issues that
Speaker 1: it's like haman haman, Like there's not good answers on
Speaker 1: because we have an issue with discussing race and how
Speaker 1: it translates to policy in this country. How does that
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that, because, like you know, when
Speaker 1: you hear it, when you hear the Vice President and
Speaker 1: you know, mister Clabern say racism when they get asked
Speaker 1: this racism exists in this country and they're like, oh, well, no,
Speaker 1: not really or whatever it is. How does that affect
Speaker 1: legislation when when there's a legislation that's based on race
Speaker 1: that comes across these desks. I think what I think
Speaker 1: it is is like is when people struggle to connect
Speaker 1: the dots. I think there's a lot of people that
Speaker 1: will acknowledge that racism exists and like this theoretical like, yes,
Speaker 1: it exists, it's a concept, you know. But I think
Speaker 1: people struggle connecting the dots in how it shows up
Speaker 1: in policy because they will claim that a lot of
Speaker 1: things aren't racist. Or you look at our system of
Speaker 1: mass incarceration or carcero system, and you look at debates
Speaker 1: around public safety and everybody, it just feels like they're
Speaker 1: just trying to race to meet the Republican rhetoric, which
Speaker 1: is that like the way that you bring down crime
Speaker 1: is being quote unquote tough on crime by like the
Speaker 1: only policy to make us safer is to just unleash
Speaker 1: like thousands more police, to skyrocket police budgets, like like
Speaker 1: that is the only answer when we know for a
Speaker 1: fact that there is not evidence there are there's very
Speaker 1: little too oftentimes no evidence that actually supports that this action,
Speaker 1: that those policy responses actually make us safer. But there
Speaker 1: are other policy responses that do make us safer. Violence
Speaker 1: interruption programs, gun safety legislations, shooting shootings in New York City.
Speaker 1: You're down thirty three percent, right, And you would never
Speaker 1: know that from how all of this stuff is portrayed
Speaker 1: in media. But I feel like we need to portray
Speaker 1: that more because I don't feel like the messaging is
Speaker 1: amazing on the gains that have been made. We hear
Speaker 1: a lot of negatives, yes, and we don't hear a
Speaker 1: lot of what's going on, So you might not hear that, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also because like a lot of
Speaker 1: folks want to shy away from that they and That's
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, Like Republicans define the zone and
Speaker 1: then Democrats kind of walk into this trap. Every time
Speaker 1: instead of being able to hold our own in the
Speaker 1: policies that we've passed. I mean it's also lived experience though,
Speaker 1: because if I hear shooting the down thirty six percent,
Speaker 1: but every time I'll turn on the news, I see shootings.
Speaker 1: Are I'm hearing in industreet, I'm like, I don't believe
Speaker 1: that exactly. And it's also because like the zone is
Speaker 1: getting flooded with all this reporting that is not consistent.
Speaker 1: The volume of the reporting is really not consistent with
Speaker 1: the volume of change that we're seeing on the ground.
Speaker 1: And that's when I think it's important to kind of
Speaker 1: talk about how media is not this like objective observer
Speaker 1: at all. It is an active participant in our politics.
Speaker 1: It is, and I've seen it from day one. I mean,
Speaker 1: like the night that I was elected, I was actually
Speaker 1: laughing because I never saw this because like I was out,
Speaker 1: I was out in the Bronx. I didn't see all
Speaker 1: of the TV media coverage outside of local news that
Speaker 1: like that immediate night. And you know, months later, someone
Speaker 1: showed me a clip from I don't know, like like
Speaker 1: NBC or something like that. It was Brian Williams, and
Speaker 1: they showed this clip and he was like breaking news.
Speaker 1: This radical far left social This is not Fox News, right,
Speaker 1: this is mainstream media. This is mainstream media. Like five
Speaker 1: minutes after I was elected, the jig was up, like
Speaker 1: it was it was in from the beginning. They saw
Speaker 1: what we were fighting for. They saw that we want
Speaker 1: to guarantee healthcare. They saw that we want public college
Speaker 1: to be tuition free in this country. They saw that
Speaker 1: we want to support a strong labor movement, and they said, no,
Speaker 1: we are going to frame her as far left as
Speaker 1: the foil for what all the quote unquote moderate even
Speaker 1: keeled like, you know, more sensible, rational people are going
Speaker 1: to be pitted against instead of taking what we were
Speaker 1: saying seriously and so and so like. Just like they
Speaker 1: played an active role there, they're playing an active role
Speaker 1: in like their decision to explode their the coverage on
Speaker 1: crime in a way that is completely inconsistent and out
Speaker 1: of proportion with reality makes them an active participant in
Speaker 1: and social media as well, because they're not checking us
Speaker 1: a Twitter and Facebook is not trying to flag anytime
Speaker 1: misinformation that's going on amongst these elections. I saw you
Speaker 1: on Twitter going at it with Elon Musk. Are you
Speaker 1: planning to get off of there. I know you have
Speaker 1: a huge following on there, so it is important for
Speaker 1: you to give out the information that you need to.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, are you like, I don't
Speaker 1: know about this platform anymore? I mean, for me, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be We're gonna have to see. You have a
Speaker 1: billionaire who decided he wants another toy in his sandbox.
Speaker 1: But it's very you know, he's in a lot of
Speaker 1: trouble right now financially, like he bought this thing for
Speaker 1: way more money at an overvaluated rate, and now he's
Speaker 1: gonna end like he took on a lot of debt
Speaker 1: in order to buy Twitter, and he's he is now
Speaker 1: in a place where he is scrambling to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make more money out of this. Are you
Speaker 1: gonna pay eight dollars a month? No? Why would I
Speaker 1: give a billionaire eight dollars? No, you're you're underestimating the
Speaker 1: stupidity of America. They're absolutely going to get that many
Speaker 1: dollars for a check, for a verified check, going to
Speaker 1: do it? No, not mean Now, he said everything you
Speaker 1: say is an accurate So how do you know what
Speaker 1: you just said was accurate? Okay? So I would no.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's a good it's a good
Speaker 1: question to ask because a lot of people in my
Speaker 1: position do say like wrong things. Um, I would say
Speaker 1: it's important to look at it's important to dig into
Speaker 1: the numbers. So someone in my position, a politician will
Speaker 1: make a claim, right, murders are up or crime is up. Now,
Speaker 1: it's not enough to say, okay, is crime up and
Speaker 1: then because from that objective analysis, people will say yeah,
Speaker 1: But it's important to look into, like dig into, like
Speaker 1: what goes into those numbers. From a lot of people,
Speaker 1: it's up from twenty twenty crime, Like a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that they're talking about, they say crime is up,
Speaker 1: it's up from twenty twenty when we're all in our
Speaker 1: house and no one was outside, and so almost any
Speaker 1: level of crime is going to be higher than it
Speaker 1: was when when we were all at home. And so
Speaker 1: there's a lot of statistics that are based on that.
Speaker 1: So you know, when you look at some of the
Speaker 1: city shootings, when I talk about what's down, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about recent statistics as of October of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and um, and we can look that up. New York
Speaker 1: City NYPD has a database called CompStat you can look
Speaker 1: up things there. But then also I think it's important
Speaker 1: to follow actual experts in these fields and look at
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys had Olaemium, Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a big fan of her work and
Speaker 1: what she does studying wrikers. Wrikers is in my congressional
Speaker 1: to and um. And so when you follow experts in
Speaker 1: these fields, they are able to kind of break down
Speaker 1: some of these numbers a little bit better for you.
Speaker 1: But if you're taking if your primary source of statistics
Speaker 1: is a politician, you know, it's important we need to
Speaker 1: cite our facts, but we also need to understand the
Speaker 1: space a little bit better too. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think one of the gifts of social media is that
Speaker 1: you don't have to be reading the news every single
Speaker 1: day to do that. I mean, that is one of
Speaker 1: the gifts of Twitter is that when you are following
Speaker 1: reputable people, right, reputable people, and get out there and
Speaker 1: go look, yes, other sources and reputable people cite their
Speaker 1: sources and usually there will be multiple sources, and so
Speaker 1: like that's really what we need to look at. We
Speaker 1: need to really bring in a lot more critical thinking
Speaker 1: into our environment because people will be out here saying anything,
Speaker 1: literally anything that's right. Well, when we say things like
Speaker 1: democracy is on the ballot, or you know, i'd like
Speaker 1: to say this country is fast approaching fascism? Can you
Speaker 1: break that down in bronx terms? Because I don't think
Speaker 1: I don't think that. I don't think people grasp what
Speaker 1: what what we're saying. I was I was saying the
Speaker 1: same thing like when people say democracies on the ballot
Speaker 1: or like our democracies on the line. That does not
Speaker 1: community kate the point that we are at. And I
Speaker 1: think people the reason people use those terms is because
Speaker 1: they don't want to use that f word of fascism.
Speaker 1: They don't want to say that word because it sounds
Speaker 1: quote unquote alarmist. But they called us alarmist when we
Speaker 1: said that Roe v. Wade was on the precipice of
Speaker 1: being repealed. They said, oh, no, like you're overreacting. They
Speaker 1: said that we were overreacting when we said that we
Speaker 1: didn't believe Trump was going to acknowledge his loss in
Speaker 1: the election. They didn't take us seriously when we said
Speaker 1: that that we were saying that January sixth was going
Speaker 1: to be violent, and they didn't believe us. We have
Speaker 1: to use this word fascism, And what does fascism mean.
Speaker 1: There's like kind of an academic term of fascism, but
Speaker 1: then there's also the live reality. And in terms of
Speaker 1: this live reality, a lot of this is about really
Speaker 1: like our individual power getting taken away. Period. Actual fascism
Speaker 1: is really, you know, in this country, American fascism is
Speaker 1: really the marrying of forces of white supremacy with just
Speaker 1: oligarchy and unfettered capitalism. And we see that in how
Speaker 1: it plays out because when you look at who is
Speaker 1: funding the extreme right wing in this country, it's billionaires, billionaires.
Speaker 1: You have Elon Musk out here supporting and telling people
Speaker 1: to vote for a political party that will not acknowledge
Speaker 1: the results of an election. Why because once they get
Speaker 1: in power, they write the checks. They will let the
Speaker 1: fossil fuel industry burn us to a crisp. They will
Speaker 1: allow the private prison industry to explode, which they did,
Speaker 1: they they will and that it also includes our carsol system,
Speaker 1: includes both our immigration carseol system and our domestic car
Speaker 1: sool system. I mean, it's really just about allowing all
Speaker 1: of this to go unfettered. And the way that they
Speaker 1: retain the political power to do that is by rally
Speaker 1: this sense of white fear, and they say, in order
Speaker 1: to protect yours, you need to support us. Like the
Speaker 1: racism is a huge animating factor, but it also pays dividends,
Speaker 1: which is why you see people billionaires like the Mercers,
Speaker 1: why you see the Koch brothers, That's why you see
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, That's why you see all of these folks
Speaker 1: aligning with the right wing. Are you alarmed about this
Speaker 1: announcement that Donald Trump is set to make next week?
Speaker 1: I mean alarmed, Like yeah, I mean, I guess shocked.
Speaker 1: No is, I'm not shocked. Alarming. It's always alarming. This
Speaker 1: person is this is a violent person, Like, this is
Speaker 1: a violent person and he will do whatever it takes,
Speaker 1: including throwing his own vice president under the bus and potentially,
Speaker 1: you know, ending his life. Like on January sixth, these
Speaker 1: people were out here to hurt Mike Pence and that
Speaker 1: was his own vice president and he was just kind
Speaker 1: of out here, like what happens happens. You know, this
Speaker 1: is a dangerous person who also is highly leveraged. We
Speaker 1: do not we still do not understand his full financial picture,
Speaker 1: but it certainly seems like he is financially very beholding
Speaker 1: to a lot of interests that are not the people
Speaker 1: of the United States, and he's going to do whatever
Speaker 1: it takes for him to come out on top. You
Speaker 1: think he'll be charged or anything. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that the case is there. I think that the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice certainly would have a case on multiple charges,
Speaker 1: including obstruction of justice, and so whether they charge him
Speaker 1: or when they charge him is going to be significant.
Speaker 1: There's some speculation that the reason that he's trying to
Speaker 1: announce at this time is to avoid charges or try
Speaker 1: to compkate and delay the Department of Justice from issuing charges.
Speaker 1: I don't think the Department of Justice knows how to
Speaker 1: punish that level of privilege, because you know that they've
Speaker 1: just system is design to protect that level of privilege.
Speaker 1: It's true, It's true. I mean, there's there was a
Speaker 1: lot of time. So I mean, how much time months,
Speaker 1: if not over a year, spent in discussing and wringing
Speaker 1: hands about can you charge the president of the United
Speaker 1: States with committing a crime or a former president with
Speaker 1: committing a crime? And even just the time it took
Speaker 1: to even resolve that question really speaks to how much
Speaker 1: impunity many positions of power have and that trickles all
Speaker 1: the way down to even policing. Yeah, because we still
Speaker 1: have qualified immunity in this country. We can't even repeal that.
Speaker 1: I suppoke to Michael Cohen. He said that, you know,
Speaker 1: I said, if it was Obama, just he would have
Speaker 1: been charged and everything. He's like, no, it's because he's
Speaker 1: a president having nothing to do with race. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that if Obama did the things that Trump did,
Speaker 1: it would we would not it would not be the
Speaker 1: same sting. It doesn't have Republicans act too. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like Democrats are tend to be, you know, very
Speaker 1: kind of buy the books. I don't want to do this.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure we could work together. Republicans
Speaker 1: are like, we're not working with No, it's not work.
Speaker 1: It never worked. It never worked. And it's this idea
Speaker 1: that like, you know, like if we're just nice to them,
Speaker 1: here's what they do. They take whatever you give them
Speaker 1: and then they run with it like there's no especially now,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it's long been that way, but
Speaker 1: especially now more than ever, Like these are not people
Speaker 1: that are interested and the people who do the few
Speaker 1: Republicans that do reach out and do try to work
Speaker 1: with Democrats, they are immediately peritual partner. It's over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But what do you think about Nancy Pelosi and her husband,
Speaker 1: because I feel like there's not a lot of sympathy
Speaker 1: there for something like that that should have never happened.
Speaker 1: But that's alarming to me. Also, Yeah, well, I mean
Speaker 1: here's the thing is that it goes beyond sympathy, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, first and foremost it is it's horrifying what
Speaker 1: happened to her and what happened to her husband and
Speaker 1: their family. But what's not being discussed, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of it. What it is being discussed, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: look at this terrible thing that happened to this woman
Speaker 1: and her family. Not there was an attempted assassination for
Speaker 1: the person third in line for the presidency of the
Speaker 1: United States of America that was politically motivated, and it
Speaker 1: and was radicalized by Fox News and by right wing circles.
Speaker 1: There is a major media outlet, there is a major
Speaker 1: news channel that is fueling political violence in this country,
Speaker 1: and we're acting like it's normal. It's not normal. Like
Speaker 1: I can tell you one hundred and ten percent. One
Speaker 1: of the largest sources of death threats that I get
Speaker 1: is Tucker Carlson. Wow, every time that dude puts my
Speaker 1: name in his mouth the next day, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like what stochastic terrorism is. It's like this indirect
Speaker 1: It's like what you have when you use a very
Speaker 1: large platform to turn up the temperature and target an
Speaker 1: individual until something happens. And then when something happens, because
Speaker 1: it's indirect, you say, oh, I had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with that. Tucker Carlson, God forbid anything happens. He plays
Speaker 1: a massive role in political violence, like it comes on
Speaker 1: his doorsteps specifically, not just I mean, it's not say
Speaker 1: something happened, What do you mean to you are just
Speaker 1: in the country period, to me, to elected officials, see
Speaker 1: any of his targets, because it's not even just elected officials.
Speaker 1: He will target people that have like other reporters, he
Speaker 1: will target, but he will also target activists and advocates
Speaker 1: that do not have resource verses or an infrastructure of
Speaker 1: protection either. And it is extremely dangerous. This he absolutely
Speaker 1: and and you know he was part of January sixth, right,
Speaker 1: like the violence that happened then he absolutely played a
Speaker 1: role in that how do you protect yourself against that?
Speaker 1: Can you sue? Well? As a public figure and elected official,
Speaker 1: you don't really get the same protections. So because like
Speaker 1: the bar for libel is much higher, there's a lot
Speaker 1: that can be said in the in the public sphere,
Speaker 1: right Like, just because someone says something bad about me
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I can go out and sue them. Even
Speaker 1: if someone lies about me, I can't really sue them.
Speaker 1: And that I think is part of what he uses
Speaker 1: as a shield. He knows that that he is targeting
Speaker 1: a a legal class that really cannot issue consequence, and
Speaker 1: he uses that to drive an enormous amount of violence.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, this dude cries like every time there's like
Speaker 1: someone around the corner that he feels like weird about,
Speaker 1: you know, like but he does not know some of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure he's going to use this on
Speaker 1: his shows. Something to him directly, I like, Tucker, come
Speaker 1: like whatever you're going to see Meanwhile, for you pardon
Speaker 1: he was saying. Meanwhile, he cries every time someone's around. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember, because somebody put his address out there one
Speaker 1: time with something, right, Yeah, But the thing is this,
Speaker 1: Like the thing is is that where it actually becomes
Speaker 1: crazy is that he drives so much of this violence
Speaker 1: and threat but meanwhile, like, I'm the one that has
Speaker 1: to pay for my own security as a consequence of
Speaker 1: his actions, Like I have to fundraise for my own safety.
Speaker 1: Like that's how raggedy this system is. And so what
Speaker 1: happens if you speak up and you can't fundraise for
Speaker 1: your own security what like, then you go into hiding
Speaker 1: literally in order to be safe, whether you go into
Speaker 1: hiding for a day or two days or a week.
Speaker 1: But then how much how much longer are we going
Speaker 1: to extend that? And this is when we, like the
Speaker 1: the clarity of what we are living in starts to
Speaker 1: come into relieve, where people who are critical of systems
Speaker 1: of power have to go into hiding, where racial minorities
Speaker 1: are targeted to drive turnout, because we know that targeting
Speaker 1: immigrants talking about crime drives out turnout. On the other side,
Speaker 1: when we mischaracterize and play into stereotypes, when you have
Speaker 1: people who say, no matter what happens in the results
Speaker 1: of the election, I will not I would accept it.
Speaker 1: I win. When you have DHS reports that just came
Speaker 1: out last week that showed that DHS was trying to
Speaker 1: like manufacture terrorism under Trump, like saying that BLM tracking people.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is what the seeds of a blooming
Speaker 1: fascist state look like. Yes, and that's why we need
Speaker 1: to turn out this vote. I understand that, like listen,
Speaker 1: not all Democrats are the same, sometimes for better, sometimes
Speaker 1: for worse. And I understand it can just feel like
Speaker 1: a bunch of bs on your ballot. But for me,
Speaker 1: I would rather have an election than no election. And
Speaker 1: that's the direction that these folks want to take us
Speaker 1: to no election, a one party state, that's true, one
Speaker 1: party state. That's why I actually enjoy listening to you,
Speaker 1: because you say things that I feel like nobody else
Speaker 1: is saying out loud, Like everything you said, like political
Speaker 1: violence is a hallmark of fascism. We notice, like denying
Speaker 1: elections a hallmark of fascism. But like you said, people
Speaker 1: are afraid to speak that word, like they're not speaking
Speaker 1: to the urgency of the moment. Yeah, and so we
Speaker 1: try to use this kind of flowery language of like
Speaker 1: democracies on the ballot, but that doesn't No, that doesn't connect,
Speaker 1: Like people don't know what that means. Democracy on the
Speaker 1: bout of course, it is I'm voting, you know, like
Speaker 1: it we have to paint the picture here, and they
Speaker 1: do right, Like they are always painting these pictures of fear.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even saying that we vote out of fear,
Speaker 1: but they are constantly creating these boogeymen for people to
Speaker 1: vote against. And I don't again, like, I don't think
Speaker 1: that we rely on fear or drum up fear necessarily,
Speaker 1: but I think we need to be clear about the stakes.
Speaker 1: And I also think on the flip side that we
Speaker 1: should be clear about what we will do with power.
Speaker 1: You know, we get we send two more senators tonight
Speaker 1: and we can hold the House. We're going to be
Speaker 1: able to codify Roe v. Wade in this country. Will
Speaker 1: I mean President Obama said he would, he didn't do
Speaker 1: it yet, Well he didn't have a Senate that would
Speaker 1: and well he didn't numbers, but you know, usually poorly
Speaker 1: four monthyon numbers. Yeah, And so I mean, well that's
Speaker 1: the thing is that he the Democratic Party. I mean,
Speaker 1: this has always been like, this is why I get
Speaker 1: in trouble, right because I talk about the conservatism of
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, and that a lot of times it's
Speaker 1: been more conservative than people think we did not have
Speaker 1: the votes to codify Roe v. Wade because Democrats did
Speaker 1: not support codifying Roe v. Wade under the Obama presidency.
Speaker 1: He may have, you know, President Obama may have, but
Speaker 1: he did not have. Like the Democratic Senate, you had
Speaker 1: Joe Manchin and you had a lot more folks like him.
Speaker 1: Now now you have Raphael Warnock as Off, people in
Speaker 1: the toughest races, John Fetterman, people in the toughest races
Speaker 1: who have already said they're committed to passing, you know,
Speaker 1: codifying Roe v. Wade. And so we get those, we're
Speaker 1: going to be able to do that. We hold the House,
Speaker 1: we're going to be able to do that. But we
Speaker 1: also need to engage people and be vote vocal about
Speaker 1: more because it is important that you don't just vote
Speaker 1: for any Democrat, Like we need to ask them, are
Speaker 1: you going to codify Roe v Wade? Like are we
Speaker 1: have to? We do need to press folks on the
Speaker 1: issues because if they're not clear, then they're giving themselves
Speaker 1: an out. But when we do the actual counting, we
Speaker 1: can get there. But you know, it does it it
Speaker 1: feels like it is this isn't even about debating taxes. Anymore.
Speaker 1: This is like so far beyond that, and the fact
Speaker 1: that people's actual civil liberties and rights are on the
Speaker 1: line is another indicator that we are in this dangerous
Speaker 1: place in the country, in this country. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting, as you know, they've been saying that
Speaker 1: that messaging has been hurting democrats. Like Democrats have been
Speaker 1: focusing on things like the economy as opposed to you know, abortion.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that? Well, you know, we
Speaker 1: have been pushing, especially progressives in the party, have been
Speaker 1: pushing for much more aggressive economic policy. But that requires
Speaker 1: tackling Wall Street. And I think it's funny because sometimes
Speaker 1: I think some moderate parts of the party they it's like,
Speaker 1: you can't have your cake and eat it too. You
Speaker 1: can't fight against more aggressive economic policies when we're governing
Speaker 1: and then complain that we that we're not talking about
Speaker 1: economics enough when we're running for office, right, Like, we
Speaker 1: but we did do a lot of things, but we
Speaker 1: need to do a lot more. Like we were able
Speaker 1: to cap the price of insulin at thirty five at
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars a month if you're on Medicare, if
Speaker 1: you're insured, But what about people who are uninsured, right,
Speaker 1: but we were able to also cap if you're on Medicare,
Speaker 1: your prescription drug prices will not be more than two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year starting in January. We are in
Speaker 1: the House. We've passed a fifteen dollar minimum wage. By
Speaker 1: this point, I feel like it needs to be twenty
Speaker 1: three personally, but we passed that. We've been able to
Speaker 1: and we passed the Inflation Reduction Act, and so we've
Speaker 1: been able. We're creating nine million climate jobs in this
Speaker 1: country just on climate alone. We start doing that in August.
Speaker 1: But like, if we want to run on economics, then
Speaker 1: maybe we stop trying to talk down the amount of
Speaker 1: student loan forgiveness that we're doing. Maybe we try to
Speaker 1: stop talking down you know, like minimum wage. It was
Speaker 1: Democrats that voted against increases. Some Democrats in the Senate
Speaker 1: that voted against increasing the minimum wage. So you know,
Speaker 1: my recommendation is for folks that are trying to just
Speaker 1: like blame the left, is the is like, maybe you
Speaker 1: listen to the left. We're trying to do things like
Speaker 1: expand healthcare and raise wages. I've got a couple more questions.
Speaker 1: I know, you gotta go back in July, people said,
Speaker 1: you faked your arrest. What was going on in that situation? No,
Speaker 1: I I have my summons. I was arrested. Um, when
Speaker 1: you're arrested, like whether you are cuffed or not, it
Speaker 1: is standard practice, as especially as an activist, that you
Speaker 1: put your hands back so that they don't get you
Speaker 1: for resisting or anything like that. And so and I'm
Speaker 1: from the Bronx and I represent Rikers like and like
Speaker 1: I'm a woman of color, you know, like I grew
Speaker 1: up in stopping frisk New York City, Like you don't
Speaker 1: catch any more charges than the one you're already catching.
Speaker 1: And but I was arrested, I was processed. I I
Speaker 1: and like it's you know, people call it performative or so,
Speaker 1: you know, things like that. But there are consequences like
Speaker 1: if I leave UM office, I can't get I will
Speaker 1: have problems getting a security clearance again, Like there are
Speaker 1: real implications. It's not just that you quote unquote get
Speaker 1: arrested and you bounce and you pay fifty dollars or whatever.
Speaker 1: It is, like there are now there's now precedent and
Speaker 1: we know this as people of color, where from the
Speaker 1: time you're fifteen you get stopped by the cops once
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, like it's all up
Speaker 1: in your life and so you know, And it's not
Speaker 1: to equate those I'm not saying that I'm equating my
Speaker 1: life with that, but it's to say that, like it's
Speaker 1: it's not nothing. And for people who call activism performative,
Speaker 1: all activism has been performative in this country. It is
Speaker 1: designed to create flashpoints of reaction and discussion. And we
Speaker 1: do need to talk about the fact that in states
Speaker 1: women are and can be arrested for exercising their human
Speaker 1: right to bodily autonomy. That's right now, We're not worried
Speaker 1: about your race. You got an have same chance of women.
Speaker 1: So we'll give us a prediction for the country. All right,
Speaker 1: how do you think them's are going to perform? Well,
Speaker 1: I'll start, Well, I'll start in New York. If you're voting,
Speaker 1: If you haven't voted yet in New York, turn out.
Speaker 1: You can go to I will vote dot com to
Speaker 1: find your vote voting place. You're polling place, and my
Speaker 1: recommendation is to vote along the working Family's party line.
Speaker 1: New York, we're very lucky we have fusion voting, so
Speaker 1: if you vote for them, you know I'm a Democratic candidate,
Speaker 1: I'm a Working Families Party candidate. All of those votes
Speaker 1: funnel to the same candidate in the end, and the
Speaker 1: working fit If you believe that the Democratic Party should
Speaker 1: be fighting harder and doing more for working people, vote
Speaker 1: on the WFP line, and it sends that message. As
Speaker 1: far as what we're gonna see tonight, I really like,
Speaker 1: on one hand, I think people sometimes are being a
Speaker 1: lot more pessimistic than what is then, Like I think
Speaker 1: what may play out, But I think just polling is
Speaker 1: so off. Like let's see Joe Biden saying that we
Speaker 1: could lose the House, and we could. Well, here's this thing.
Speaker 1: Right now, Democrats are projected or you know, statistically supposed
Speaker 1: to quote unquote supposed to lose like twenty something seats.
Speaker 1: So there's a world where we outperform everything and still
Speaker 1: don't keep the majority in terms of polling. But also
Speaker 1: turnout right now is breaking a lot of projections. And
Speaker 1: you know who's breaking them in particular, young people, right,
Speaker 1: Young people that they always talk down on us, They
Speaker 1: always call us naive. They always say that we don't
Speaker 1: turn out the vote. They always say that you know,
Speaker 1: we don't show up. We're turning out in record numbers,
Speaker 1: and by twenty twenty four, millennials and Gen Z are
Speaker 1: set to out number inelectorate people ages boom, you know,
Speaker 1: people baby boomers and up. And so if we actually
Speaker 1: turn out and use this power, it's very possible that
Speaker 1: we could see a dramatic shift in our politics in
Speaker 1: two three four years if we can hang on to
Speaker 1: our democracy. And so, you know, I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of the turnout numbers are breaking some of the
Speaker 1: early polling data, and it's really important that we don't
Speaker 1: listen to polls as a determination for like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: not going to matter. If I turned to me, it
Speaker 1: makes me feel like we gotta go. We have to go.
Speaker 1: When you're pessimistic and you're like this could happen, it
Speaker 1: makes me feel more like I have to make sure
Speaker 1: that I go and that I tell other people to
Speaker 1: go too. Yes, And I'd rather do that than think, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna win. And if you're if you're in Nevada,
Speaker 1: for example, that polling is within the margin of error,
Speaker 1: like they're at fifty point four percent, they're like they're
Speaker 1: within one two three points out there, and What makes
Speaker 1: the determination is turnout. And when people turn out that
Speaker 1: aren't expected to turn out, that's literally how I won
Speaker 1: my race, right right, I won my race. My polls
Speaker 1: had me thirty five points, like behind or down or
Speaker 1: at thirty five. You know, it's been a bit, but
Speaker 1: like there, I was down by it was like thirty
Speaker 1: five points. And the reason why the polling was so
Speaker 1: off and so broken in my race is because I
Speaker 1: turned out poor people, I turned out young people, I
Speaker 1: turned out working class people, and I turned out black
Speaker 1: and brown people, and I turned out you know, young
Speaker 1: white folks too, in a way that broke all of
Speaker 1: the models. They don't count on us turning out. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: the poll's gonna say we're gonna lose, nothing's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But if you are a person that is usually counted
Speaker 1: out of our democratic process and you vote, you break
Speaker 1: this system and you break what is predicted living proof. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't just us. Then we went out and
Speaker 1: we did it again with Jamal Bowman. He overturned. Jamal
Speaker 1: overturned to a twenty something year incumbent that was one
Speaker 1: of the most powerful people in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1: And we did it again and again and again, and
Speaker 1: so it's possible. But we need to like actually believe
Speaker 1: that we matter, because we do. If there's a red wave,
Speaker 1: God forbid, how close are we to the definitive democracy
Speaker 1: if that happens tonight? Um, you know, I think what
Speaker 1: is going to be a determinant is so like the
Speaker 1: one of the real fears here is that, you know,
Speaker 1: we have a democratic president. And so if we have
Speaker 1: a democratic president, and especially if we're able to have
Speaker 1: gains in the Senate or even hold on to the Senate,
Speaker 1: there's a limit in the bad things that Republicans can do,
Speaker 1: but they can inflict a lot of damage. They already
Speaker 1: said because spending originates in the House. They said that
Speaker 1: they will not authorize the debt ceiling, a debt limit,
Speaker 1: which would be catastrophic for not just the US economy,
Speaker 1: but the global economy. They will do that in order
Speaker 1: to cut social security and medicare. But the real fear
Speaker 1: in terms of our democracy is whether they would certify
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four election if it turns out in
Speaker 1: a way that if they don't win it. Basically, that's
Speaker 1: the real fear here. And you know, I know that
Speaker 1: there's legislation that has been coursing through Congress to try
Speaker 1: to beef up that protocol that was basically exploited on
Speaker 1: January sixth, where that let people believe in this delusion
Speaker 1: that Mike Pennce had the power to like not authorize
Speaker 1: the election, which is just not true. But you know,
Speaker 1: if that doesn't hold, then we have a very immediate
Speaker 1: democratic risk in small, d our democracy is them not
Speaker 1: voting to certify any election that they don't win in
Speaker 1: that's I mean, for real, and they've already indicated as
Speaker 1: such in places like Wisconsin and rhetoric like Carry Lakes,
Speaker 1: like they're saying it out in the open that you
Speaker 1: let us win this one time, then a Republican will
Speaker 1: never lose again. And that's not because they don't actually
Speaker 1: they didn't actually lose because they won't concede. And it's
Speaker 1: because they will they will try to take things by force,
Speaker 1: and they have in the past fascism. That's why you
Speaker 1: got yeah, yeah, real right now, And then you know,
Speaker 1: I talk about organizing the on season, the off season,
Speaker 1: right and the on season with elections, but what we
Speaker 1: do with those elections all also matter, and so like
Speaker 1: it's important for people to not only vote, but to
Speaker 1: also engage in a struggle of some kind, whether and
Speaker 1: anything that's important to you, whether it's housing and seeing
Speaker 1: if there's housing organizing, tenants, unions that are forming in
Speaker 1: your area, whether it is your workplace unionizing, if you're
Speaker 1: being being you know, exploited in your workplace, whether it
Speaker 1: is criminal justice, and whether it's you know, like abolitionist organizing.
Speaker 1: I think it's important for people to engage in community.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, like that's our
Speaker 1: biggest long term defense of this is that when we
Speaker 1: engage in community, then it's a lot harder for these
Speaker 1: lives to travel the way that they do. We live
Speaker 1: in such an exploitative moment in history that people are
Speaker 1: very isolated. And they're isolated because you got to wake
Speaker 1: up first thing in the morning, clock in, go to work,
Speaker 1: work one shift, two shifts, come back, sleep, eat, and
Speaker 1: you do it all over again, and there's no time
Speaker 1: to commune. And back in the day like this was,
Speaker 1: this was the labor movements demand eight hours for rest,
Speaker 1: eight hours for work, eight hours for what you will,
Speaker 1: and that what you will is when is that fabric,
Speaker 1: it's when you're in Girl Scouts. It's when you're in
Speaker 1: Elks club meetings. It was like all of that like
Speaker 1: kind of old school stuff that we think about community boards,
Speaker 1: Like engaging in community is one of our best defenses.
Speaker 1: And so my recommendation to people is to really do
Speaker 1: that work. And like it's not enough to be on Twitter,
Speaker 1: like who are you with in person? What are you building?
Speaker 1: And it could be literally anything. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be as political quote unquote explicitly political as people think
Speaker 1: it is. Like even if you're just doing a food drive,
Speaker 1: even if you're just you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that we do that people think isn't political, but
Speaker 1: it is. And when you engage in any sort of way,
Speaker 1: even volunteering, you're building that social fabric and you're inoculating
Speaker 1: yourself from that politics of division. Absolutely AOC, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us today. I'm going to go vote now. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's do it close open. They close at nine pm
Speaker 1: in New York State. All right, it's AOC. Is the
Speaker 1: breakfast clause. Thank you everybody,