Ruben Gallego, Maxwell Frost & Hunter Walker

to Congress. But first we have the spiciest congressman in the land who represents Arizona's seventh district, My friend and yours, Reuben Diego. Welcome to Fast Politics, Representative Reuben Diego. So pretty exciting. And the year what is happening? Well, you know, I think there's a lot of Christmas gifts coming out. Obviously we're still trying to get the budget done here here since Cinema decided to take a walk on Arizona's

and we'll see what the rest of the rings. First, let's talk about the Arizona mid term which was pretty harry, was it? I mean, you were in Arizona on the ground pretty much killing yourself, and Arizona elected many Democrats. Yeah, we did it. I mean it was it was Harry in the sense that, of course, if we had lost, we would have had some really crazy people in office. But it was not Harry in the sense that I just didn't think that it was that we were going

to lose. What was it like on the ground there, I mean, Arizona is a purple state, but Democrats one Senate governorship Secretary of state a g Yeah, almost of the state house states said it almost picked up to congressional seats. Look, what I saw on the ground was that I knew that the ground has shifted in Arizona, that we were no longer a kind of red leaning state, that we were truly a purple state, and that if we had the right investment, that we could probably pull

up a lot of these races. And where we had the right investment, we want. Where we didn't have investments, we lost. For example, we lost two congressional seats by about two thousand votes each, but with no national investment in there. And so you know, you saw Kelly rolled through that race, um winning by five points in Arizona. That is a landslide, considering that we are, you know,

still a purple state. But I was not surprised, Like I saw a coalition of people coming together, young voters, well educated voters that started to really move to Arizona. Latino voters are stuck with the Democratic Party spite like what everyone else had said, and the Republicans came in with the most extremist people with offering zero solutions, and at the end of the day, I think that is

what probably single. It doesn't seem to me like Blake Masters is like the perfect candidate there, but he did do a lot of advertisements with guns, right yeah. I mean, look, number one, you can't run somebody that has a serial killer vibe like that. That was yeah, you're afraid to spit. I'll say it right like I had. I had a friend of mine and she told me, like he's the kind of guy that I was a date on. I would actually call in my friend and say that there's

an emergency, no one's gonna go for that person. Even his guns videos were even weird. I mean, I owned weapons. I was in the Marine Corps, and it's okay, fine, you're a gun owner. But even his guns were weird. They looked like they were from like some weird bond build like like it was like one he had one gun that looked like it was like the Cicarios owned it.

It was like it was really really hot. Like so even his the things that he was trying to talk to you more concerned people about, even that way he did in a weird way. And it's the shocker that he lost by five points. Yeah, shocking. And Katie Hobbs and I mean that was I think, you know, now you have a democratic governor in Arizona, carry Lake by the it will be protesting that election forever and ever. Right, Well, she has to because it's her way of staying relevant.

It's her way of also fundraising and paying her consultants and going on on the national speaking tour. There's I mean, there's a whole industry that comes from this now, and that's why you see people like this not conceding. She may not have won, but her weird orange filter that she uses on her Zoom appearances, I thought that was pretty amazing. That will be the what stays with me from her her run right now. I tried it that

that weird filter. Look, it's not a good look. It's like a little distracting from what we're really doing here. I look like an like it's not gonna work. So let's talk about this, Hearson Cinema. I mean the timing is amazing. Right, So Democrats, when Reverend Mornock runs yet again, I think it's it was his fifth victory and right, I mean, that's like all these this is about how like Warnock has raised so much money. It's because he has been running for office almost continuously for the last

two years. So he wins on Wednesday Thursday, there's like a day of like, wow, it was a red wave and Democrats added a Senate seat Friday. Kirsten Cinema interview with CNN, interview with Politico. She does not like the rigid partisanship. Does she really not like the rigid partisanship or is this just the worst kind of pundin bs. Well, you know what she doesn't like is the fact that if she stayed and ran in the Democratic primary against me,

I would be here by double digits. Or more importantly, instead of actually trying to recruit I mean her relationship with Democrats, she decided to take the easy way out and run for run as an independent. Now the pundit's just kind of let that go because you know, countries puntry, I can't do the job for them. But at the end of the day, you know, she she been in you know, not not Democrats. She abandoned the Arizona values and just to align herself with hedge funds and Farman.

And at the end of the day, that's what what probably cost her both the primary but will also end up causing her the general election. And the math is she can't win as an independent. I mean, she thinks she is Joe Lieberman, right, she thinks she is John McCain even better. But John McCain had a history in Arizona where people respected his position and he could actually hold Republicans. He could actually he would hold town halls. She's no John McCain. You know, she's gonna out decide

where she wants to go. But I don't understand how you can run for the Senate and not meet with your constituents at all. It doesn't matter if your Democrat, republic or independent. That does not sell well. And that's not gonna changing time to so Cinema has already her her progressive firm dropped her as a client. I mean, do you think that Democrats can sort of see what's happening. Yeah,

I think so. I think they see it. Like, look, I don't know if this says anything, but the fact that I received so much support in three hours, I mean I had but going to go for Arizona dot Com and literally clicking that donate button as fast as humanly possible. I've never raised this amount of money in

such a short time period. So clearly there is a lot of people out there that are unhappy with her and also are not scared of this threat of her running is an independant, yeah, and she's sort of spinning it to sound like it's, you know, a problem with partisanship. But the Republican Party, I mean again, and this is like a punditry brain worms issue. The two parties are not the same, not even a little no. I mean, one party believes in democracy, that's the Democratic Party. Believes

in the right of women to control their bodies. Believes in a basic minimum wage so people can actually live, uh and not have to suffer, you know, in poverty wages while still trying to raise a family. We want child tax credits so we can, Oh my god, cut you child poverty by in this country. And we want seniors not to go broke paying for their prescriptions in their golden years. I don't want to see your worrying about paying for a prescription that is nearly free in

other parts of the world. But then they have to struggle in rash and here instead of enjoying their time after working their whole lives. So that's the Democratic Party, right We're a party of dignity, a party that actually wants you to enjoy and have an opportunity at the American dream versus I don't know what the Republican Party is right now. Right now, it's just this ball of like stoking anger, but it doesn't need anywhere to just leads to even Warringer. I want to talk to you about.

So this weekend, the Young Republican Club, which is very very friendly with all of the kind of worst people in the Republican Party. Uh, they had Marjorie Taylor Green speak. She said, had Steve Bannon really been behind January six, it would have worked, basically, was the extent of it. How do you serve in Congress with this person? And also what is the large or is this a larger implication of people like this not you know, being held

responsible for whatever their part was. Well, first of I would not have Let's be clear, the American public would never have stitch or something like this. Doesn't matter how many guns they would have brought. There's nothing in the DNA of this country that would allow something like that to happen. So maybe they had like a couple hours of success on that day, but they certainly would never been able to do what they wanted to do, and certainly not led by an idiot like Martin Taylor Green.

She's not exactly the Eisenhower of the movement for something like them, right exactly. But what it does tell you is that they feel empowered enough that they could even make jokes about it. And this is nothing to joke about. Your police officers died, they were injured. There she still injured and she wants to make jokes about that. It really goes to show you, like the whole back the blue mantra is only matters when it actually is back in them. But you know, the margin jailer Greens are

not just the people you have to worry about. You have to worry about the Ralph Norman's of South Carolina, who three days before the inauguration was texting Mark Meadows try and encourage the president to invoke martial law. Those are the dangerous people. Those people are a combination of dumb and aggressive and if you elect enough dumb and aggressive people to Congress, that could be very dangerous. And that's why we have to, you know, keep our keep

on our toes. That's why this election was really important. The fact that we kept the margins so close. It's going to make it extremely difficult for them to actually try to do another the certification of the Electoral College like they did last time. And to kudos to the American public for recognizing that this was a real serious issue. Yeah, exactly. Um. I want to ask you, I'm reading a lot of reporting about the spending bill that McCarthy seems like he's

kind of, you know, doesn't want it to pass. What do you think, I mean, do you think that they're going to kick the can. I think there's gonna be a temporary kick of the can for this week, and I think at the end we won't get to a negotiated bill. Right now, that upline is twenty six billion dollars apart. I believe, and I think we'll figure out a way to get to that bottom line. I don't think anybody wants Kevin McCarthy or this Republican Caucus with

a budget. You know, that's like handing someone a grenade without a pin and and hoping that they can hold it together. That's not going to happen with this caucus. It's Kevin McCarthy thinks he is the you know, the ringleader of the circus, when in fact he is one of the clouds, and uh, it's not it's not gonna end. Well, do you think that there's like a little bit of schadenfreuda like from the Democrats who House Democrats were waiting

to get a shellacking. Kevin McCarthy said he was going to win sixty seats, like he's barely you know what, he has what five six seat majority? I mean, do you think there's a fair amount of schadenfreude where the Democrats who thought they were going to get shellacked havn't? I mean, do I take pleasure in seeing this is

what you're asking? Yeah? Sure, Well, if if there wasn't any real consequences to us, yes, But the problem is there are real war consequence to this, right, Like, if they screw up the debt liment, they will throw our economy into the ships. I don't know how the way other ways to drive it, right, it'll you know, put us into a recession. They will impact through the wages,

it will impact retirees, all these kind of things. Right. So, like, you know, as much as I want to, you know, dance on that grave, it's a very dangerous thing to do because we don't we don't know how they're going to operate. We don't know if they're gonna be They're gonna have to shut down the government at some point because they're gonna be able to put a budget together

in the future. So in some regards, I think I'm glad that we want as much as we did, because maybe we have an opportunity to form some coalitions to save the country. But you know, I don't want to celebrate necessarily in their failure because in some regards, that is the failure potentially of the country and will affect millions of lives. Do you think there's a West Wing unity ticket like House speaker who is a Republican but

not a lunatic or is that a fantasy. I think, look, if you give that if someone came to the Democrats and say, like, we will give you the votes, and here's the person it was someone that we could work with again for the sake of the country, I don't think we would say no, we at least look at it, look at it. The problem is that, like I think,

you know, let's be honest, West Wing is fictional. So that scenario is quite fictional right now, and largely because a lot of the moderate elements of the Republican Party just don't exist anymore, or if they do exist, they don't exist as elected officials. And so this is going to have to be something more akin to a combination of the West Wing plus House of Cards and throwing Veep. And I think that's how I gonna end up coming up with whoever the party. I wish I was kidding.

I can actually think that's actually gonna end up being some something. I guess it's a little good that Veep is in there, because at least it will be funny. Funny. Yeah, I mean it's like fun me ha ha, not like funny ha ha. Right, So it's funny, like very worrying exactly. So you're announcing your run now or can try there? I love it and working on it. That was that was that was one of the more creative approaches you've

tried on this. Well. You know, I know that this podcast will be the place where you announce because a man certainly, yes, I mean clearly, yes, I'm preparing. You know, my preparation does not does not mean it is my decision. My preparation. It just means that I that's who I am. I always prepare so I can have all options available.

And we're gonna take this time during the holidays, spend time with my family, talk to them about what's coming potentially, and then come into next year like I've always said, in twenty three, and then make an announcement. Obviously, things can change, you know, conditions to the ground can change the what can happen or what my decisions can make. But that's where I am right now. I mean that election is about a year right before it happens, right

two years. I know, no, I know it's cheers away, but I mean there's sort of timetable of like running starts about a year before. Every election is different. Some elections Yes, started about a year before the election. Some start, you know, even earlier. I think, if you're gonna be taking that and commit like cinema will be well funded by Wall Street pharma, you're going to have to find I start earlier. Thank you so much, Rubin, Thank you for joining us, No problem. Talk to. Hunter Walker is

an investigative reporter at Talking Points. Memo Hunter Walker, Hello, welcome to Fast Politics. Thanks for having me talk. You have some text messages, a couple of thousand. Talk to us about the top line of these text messages. So, these are the twenty three hundred and nineteen text messages that Trump's last chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, provided to

the House Select Committee investigating the January six attack. And you know, people may remember he didn't really cooperate with the may He ended up filing lawsuits to try to resist their subpoenas and request for his phone records. But there was this brief period where he was initially cooperating and he turned over these text messages. One thing that's really really important to keep in mind is these are the tip of the iceberg, because the committee couldn't actually

get his phone records. Yet, we don't know fully who he communicated with. There's also a lot of indications within this text message log that it's a partial record of his communications. We see conversations sort of begin out of nowhere, things that are kind of out of context and don't have natural follow up. We also see, particularly with Congressman Scott Perry, a lot of moving things over to signal an encrypted app always a sign that you are you

have nothing to hide. Yeah, it was sort of a stringer Bell moment where they're literally like talking about let's take this over to signal, but putting that in writing. Yeah, you know, I just can't help but think of that line from the wire, like are you really taking notes under criminal conspiracy? And then also I'm starting to become aware of multiple instances where there are communications Meadows had

that just aren't reflected in these logs. But all of that being said, what we do have in theext messages is just absolutely shocking. It shows a couple of things that I think, you know, are most important to start the conversation with. First Off, you know, the plot to overturn the election began almost immediately on election night, and it's stretched well beyond January six. It also was a coordinated effort involving people at every level of government and

Republican politics. You saw, you know, conservative activists from Matt Slap to Amy Kramer. You see local politicians, you see House members, you see people in the Senate, and you see local officials. Okay, so match Slap is the head of sepack. He was sort of fringe e and and he and Trump together sort of became more Republican establishment.

What was his part in this? So he's just someone who you know, was repeatedly texting, you know, offers to help as Meadows was sort of running the lobbying efforts and legal challenges. He later, as I reported a couple of months back, sort of operated a defense fund for people who got caught up in the investigations. But you know, he's not the only one involved in these dark money groups.

You know c p I Conservative Partnership Institute, which employed Meadows after Trump left office, um serving as something about headquarters for the election objections. You know, they're a clubhouse

on Capitol Hill. They've hosted Freedom Caucus meetings I've learned from sources, but also we see in texts they were hosting gatherings for people like Jim Jordan's Texas Congressman Brian Babin and Marjorie Taylor Green, who were sort of strategizing about how to object to the election on the House floor in January six. Let's talk about Scott cyber team and an Italian job. First, tell us who scap areas.

He is a Pennsylvania Republican member of the House of Representatives, and he he is, I believe, the current chair of the Freedom Caucus that makes sense far right group that Meadows himself once led, and at the time he was just a member of it, and he was really trying to insert himself in every aspect of you know, the

January six plotting. So you see him offered to kind of be involved in the pressuring and the coordinating of lawmakers in his home state Pennsylvania, which was, you know, one of the main focal points, one of the swing states they wanted to turn. You see him, you know, sort of engaged in the effort again to you know, object to the election formally at the Capitol on January six, and you also see him sort of passing what he

might have considered intel to Mark Meadows. He sort of was operating what he in his own words called a quote unquote cyber team, and he was sending over their advice to Meadows, which you know included crazy stuff like seizing voting machines. And the name was really really fixated on two different things. One is the so called quote unquote Italy Gate conspiracy. Yes, please tell us about the Italy Gate conspiracy, because I seem to remember this stupidness.

So this one is convoluted like even by MAGA standards, and as best I can summarize it, it involves the idea that an Italian defense contractor, for reasons that are never quite explained, used satellites to zap the voting machines. And obviously this is sort of absurd on its face, but it's also ridiculous because, as has been repeatedly noted, one of the big myths of this stuff is the

idea that voting machines are connected to the Internet. Also in Georgia in particular, which again was a huge focal point. Italy is spending money on lasers to zap American voting machines. It seems like a very low on their priorities list. Yeah, and also that mean that the idea that that could even work. I mean in Georgia. You know, the ballots

were all verified and recounted by hand. He's fixated on this to the point that he was suggesting to Meadows that Trump should be, you know, personally lobbying the Italian Prime Minister to somehow address this. And he was texting, you know, can we just work with the Italian government. Can you imagine Mario Droggy being like, no, we didn't send lasers to Georgia. This was county. But I think it's just so they basically wanted to like throw this

on the guy's desk. You know, as soon as he gets in office, you got sort of lame duck Trump ranting to you about satellites, I guess, and that Perry did not stop there. He also had like wild theories about England and the CIA, I think, and he was just over and over again pressing Meadows to install Jeff Clark, who was this environmental lawyer as acting Attorney General. Right. Mega world was like obsessed with Jeff Jeff Clark. Yeah.

And the through line, as much as I can find one, through all this, there was this executive order Trump signed in eighteen that kind of on its face reads like a fairly normal document. It describes procedures for, you know, responding to suspected foreign election interference. It's actually something that came about, you know, in sort of the Mueller probe era, when Trump was getting hit for not doing enough about

Russian meddling, and he's like, here's this executive order. What I think people didn't notice at the time was that the executive Order essentially had a trap door where if the Trump administration declared there had been foreign meddling, they could basically have an undefined and superbroad authority to engage

in sanctions, which could include god knows what. So, of course, in the wake of his loss, various maga minds, if you will, were fixated on the idea that if they could just get the government to declare that there had been foreign interference, then they could use this executive order to you know, seas the voting machine stopped the counting, put troops in the street, you know, anything you can imagine.

Um and Scott Perry really seems to have been just throwing everything at the wall, sort of in line with that type of thinking. Pretty amazing. Jeff Clark, I want you to talk about Jeff Clark for a minute, because he's a super interesting character. Yeah, I mean it's just another one of these I mean, one thing you learn. And you know, I just also had um in September came out with a book, The Breach Um, that I co wrote with Denver Riggleman, who was a Republican member

of Congress and then the staffer on the committee. Um. So I've been diving deep into January six really since the day it happened, prior to doing this text series for t PM. And when you really dig deep into this stuff, you know, January six wasn't just any one thing.

I think it is good as a broad term to apply to, you know, the schmore Gas Board of efforts by Trump people before and after the election to kind of raise doubts about the vote, challenge the vote, and ultimately you know, overturned the election and possibly even declare martial law. And you know, there was not any one person really other than Trump in charge. There was not

really any one line of attack. There were all these tons of characters, whether it be Phil Waldron, Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, who were working on various aspects of this. Clark was this environmental lawyer, you know, not remotely qualified to be attorney general, and he seems to have been someone who was ready and willing to work

on the sort of executive order type strategy. You know, what ended up happening was that the DJ basically revolted and blocked him from being put in as the country's

top law enforcement officer. And I think that's an important point to bring up because you know, one thing that we see from these Meadows texts in this series we're doing on talking points in memo is not only were you know, Republican members of Congress broadly, you know, a group of these plotters that I'm talking about, but with the various schemes they were all concocting and a couple of points, you know, you see things that might have

worked if certain people in government didn't stand up. You know, I would include the governors that got pressure from Trump, Bryan Kemp and Doug Doocey, people like Raffinsburger and Georgia, and then the DJ folks who like wouldn't let Clark get installed. And I think a really frightening question that all of this evidence were sifting through on TPM brings up is you know what would have happened just a couple more people, Mike pet speak another another big one.

We're willing to go fully along with it. So I want to talk to you about the Rick Allen revelations. Also, who is Rick Allen? From my Dad Tell my dad Rick Allen is. So you know, Rick Allen is a Georgia congressman and you know he's one of the stars of Day two of our Meadows Texts series on tpm UM and in the way we kind of framed it, I did my story on him with my colleague Kayla Philo. He's not a star. He's kind of a side character in the in the vast you know, Maga extended cinematic universe.

He's not a name people know. But the second you open the Meadows text log, it becomes apparent that you know, you know, it's not necessarily clear a hundred percent how much you know Meadows wanted him there, but Rick Allen wanted to be there, and it was just you know, aggressively, you know, working to promote conspiracy theories, press officials in his home state of Georgia and aid the election challenge

anyway he could. In one really interesting moment he seems to have texted Brad Raethinsburger, the Secretary of State in Georgia, who again was a focal point of pressure from you know, Trump and his allies, and you know, people forget this, but essentially the Georgia runoff, which we examined in another East that went up today on TPM, the Georgia runoff occurred, you know, at the same time as you know, the

broader presidential election denial effort. I believe voters went to the polls on January five to vote in that Senate race, so it kind of got caught up in everything. And you see that in one of these texts from Alan, where he's prefacing Ravensburger about an issue that occurred in a polling side or a couple of polling sites in

one of the counties in his district. He's kind of saying, see, look, you know, Dominion, I blame you for this, citing the voting company that was just you know, as central to various MAGA conspiracy theories. As best I can tell from local reporting, the issue that Alan was highlighting, there was a problem with some machines. For a couple of hours, people had to vote with paper during that period, and

it just really wasn't a big deal. But he was pref pressing Ravensburger on this, and then he forwarded those texts in real time over to Meadows. And what's interesting about this is the Allen sort of let's call it the Columbia County conspiracy theory, ends up on Trump's Twitter feed that day, where the President basically says, thank you, Rick Allen, more evidence of problems in Georgia. Yes, I'm

not surprised. I want to talk to you about the pardons, though, if I may, just there's two things that you know, I want to make sure people know about Rick Allen. One, you know, another conspiracy theory mainlined right into the White House is this bizarre Romanian YouTube video. And then his whole communications with Meadows closes, you know, in the wake of January six, when he essentially sends this long text saying that Trump needs Jesus and he wants to minister

over Trump in the White House. Now you might think, I mean, I think probably a lot of your listeners think that Trump needs Jesus. But in Rick Allen's mind, you know, this wasn't about getting right this was about Jesus sort of getting him ready for the war that was to come and Trump needed spiritual power, and Meadows response to this with God bless you. So I'm sorry you were saying pardons. He has pardons. That's another another crazy part of the series on TPM. Yeah, so let

me ask you what about the pardons. One thing that we saw in these text messages was a couple of people including Rick Allen, including Paul Gosar and also a local UH lawmaker in charge of Vernon Jones, and then Ted Budd who actually just became a senator. Yeah, who became a senator. They all were texting MARKT. Meadows and explicitly, like literally within the same text, you know, pairing their election denial activism with requests for pardons. So, for example,

Ted Budd, you know, this is December number one. Anything I need to do to help get Robin h on the parton list too, I'm on the January six objector list in case there's anything to sync up on hand off grateful for you, you you know. So they were just like literally mixing it a hundred hundred percent. So they did everything short of a g doc for partments. Yeah, yeah, and I mean again, you know, I go back to that line from the wire like were you really taking

notes on on a criminal conspiracy? And again, you know, we're talking Tuesday morning, as we're actually prepping that story for publication. My colleague, I mean a Eugel and I are talking to various legal experts. Is this ichy or all the way illegal? And the answer seems to be depends on your legal interpretation, but it's definitely, you know, borderline unethical and very clearly documented that there was you know, pretty direct favor trading going on. Oh yeah, it sounds

like I want to get to this idea. What text do you think is the most smocking gun of the text? I would have to say I think I called the Ralph Norman text. I'm just pulling that one up right now, but I think I called that the raw distillation of

everything else you see in the Meadows text log. And he's a South Carolina Republican and on January, three days before Biden was set to take office, in one of these text messages that we've published on TPM, Ralph Norman writes to Mark Meadows and says, quote Mark in seeing what's happening? So quickly and reading about the dominion lawsuits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation. We are at a point of no return in saving our republic. Double exclamation point,

our all caps last hope is invoking martial law. Double exclamation point should Marshall was misspelled. And then he goes to all collaps for you know, the crescendo, the grand finale. Here, please urge to president to do so, so I highlight this. I mean it's humorous in a sense, but it's also terrifying because what you have here with Dominion is just debunked conspiracy theories, a elected member of Congress failing basic information literacy and then using that, you know, to justify

this overheated rhetoric and a call for martial law. So he's literally essentially, you know, three days before what should have been the peaceful transfer of power January six has already happened, and this guy, Ralph Norman is calling for troops in the streets. And you know, I called him. I spoke to him yesterday and I was like, we're reporting on this text, um and he said to me, it's been two years. Send that text to me and I'll take a look at it, and I did send

it to him, and then he never responded. He ghosted me. So interesting and also so very trumpy. Thank you so much, under Walker for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. I know you, our dear listeners are very busy and you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces of pundentry each week. This is why every week I put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy the podcast, you will love

having this in your inbox every Friday. So sign up at Fast politics dot com and click the tab to join our mailing list. That's Fast politics pod dot com. Maxwell Frost is the congressman elect in Florida's tenth district. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Maxwell Frost, Hey, thank you so much for having me on. We're thrilled to have you. Your twenty five years old. You came on this podcast when you were running for office. You have run, you have won your congressman elect. You will be sworn in

in January. You're already pretty famous. Sorry, you've come from March for Our Lives. Why do you think that you already are resonating in the national media Because there are a lot of a lot of members of Congress that no one's ever heard of. Yeah, I mean, you know,

I think it's a couple of things. I mean, number one, the historic nature of our campaign, being the first member of a generation and an institution like Congress, I think is really exciting for both younger and people of any age, and I think that's, you know, a big part of

the reason. I think the other one is that I think people are loving our message and the authenticity that our campaign brought to win this and that we're just bringing the Congress and you know, it's nothing, it's nothing wildly different than what a lot of other folks have brought, and so just excited to be a small part of

such a big puzzle. One of the things that I was really impressed with that you did was you talked about your story of trying to get an apartment in d C. It was like one of these things that I'm sure you didn't think much of, but that really

resonated with people. Will you talk about that a little bit, Yeah, So, I mean, essentially, I always knew I would have a problem getting an apartment for this first month, first two months, because for people who don't know when you're incoming member Congress, you don't get your first paycheck for a month after you get sworn in, and then you also don't get healthcare until then. So I knew this is something I

have to think through. So I was actually planning on couch surfing or saying with a friend or two for about a month the first couple of months to really, you know, accrue some of my first normal paychecks UM in a while, and then be able to move in somewhere.

And that was my plan. But I saw an apartment become available in the Navy Yard that was in my budget range UM, and I was really excited about it because I was like, Wow, I might be able to have a home here on the first when I actually start the job, went to the place at a very long tour, applied for it on the spot because I didn't want to lose it. Was really excited left and

then found out that I was denied. And when I looked at the paperwork, I was denied because of my credit score, even though I had, you know, a letter from the House of Representatives vouching essentially that I'll have a certain salary for the next two years. And so I really tweeted what I tweeted half at a frustration and half wanting people to kind of know, Hey, I mean remember Congress, and I'm still going through this and again,

and I tweeted this. I know I come from a point of privilege because like, in two years, if you know, all goes well, I get reelected, I'll be okay essentially credit wise, probably because of my new salary and hopefully it'll be able to pay off some debt. But the point of entry is very difficult, and the point of

entry to power determines who gets to the power. And when we see how inaccessible it is for working class people to run for office and then assume office, it makes a lot of sense why there's not as many working class people representative government these days. Yeah, I mean, and I think that that it's so important. Also, I mean, I'm twenty years older than you, actually only nineteen years

older than you. But in my own life I've seen that like, the more I can share stories that might feel embarrassing but are really relevant to a lot of other people, the more I can kind of help them, which always is really helpful for me. If that makes any sense. No, that makes a ton of sense, and

I completely like, I agree with you. I mean, the day of that, I tweeted that, I you know, so I went on Google and googled myself to see what were the news articles, and it was just news article after news article talking about, you know, me having bad credit and all this, and I'm like, oh, wonderful that people people me, they'll know I have bad credit. But you know, looking at the responses on Twitter and the emails, We've got hundreds of emails, people sharing their own stories

and everything. So we're we're kind of taking a step back and figuring out, number one, what can we do in the immediate once we get sworn in to fight for tenants and renters and all the all the people who are not going to be sworn in the Congress and in a couple of months and have a good salary for the next two years, right like the Americans across the country and also in my district, which in Orlando, we have one of the worst housing crisis in the

entire country right now. So yeah, this has presented a new opportunity. And then we have all these stories that people have sent us that we want to tell because you know, as an organizer. I think storytelling is our greatest tool, and I want to tell stories, um with legislation. So either way, Yeah, that's my thinking too. I mean I just think, like, you know, you're twenty five years old,

like of course you have bad like one. I mean, I guess there are twenty five year old who have parents who are so rich that they never have bad credit. But largely you're twenty five. Like that's what it is. Man. I think it's such an important moment. Talk to me about what it's like to come into this Congress because you are coming in in a really interesting time, right, you have this very radicalized Republican party. They did not have this red wave they thought they would. There's a

lot of like drama. What is it like for you? Yeah, I mean it's definitely been a world when Um, I can say, I feel like I've been in a little bit of a bubble with orientation, just because at orientation number one there's not a ton of opportunities to talk with people from the other party. There's some, and the ones you get, you know, I think it's really cordial and we all talk to each other talk about the

things we agree with. But I know in my heart of hearts come January three, not for every member, but for certain numbers. I think that tone will change when they get into the ranks of their party and we start debating these issues and Republicans want to go for a Hunter Biden and that of figuring out, you know, how can we help people with their day to day life. And so the hope is that there'll there'll be enough folks for us to work together in a bipartisan way.

But I know it's gonna be difficult. You know, I'm not I'm not wildly optimistic about it, unfortunately, just because of what we've seen from the other side over the last few weeks. I want to talk to you about how you came to Congress because you worked in March Our Lives and you come from that generation. Jessie and I was generation. We grew up under still the assault rifle band, so we had less school shootings when we were growing up. But the generation after us and you

guys really for the brunt of it. And I'm curious how that informs the kind of Congress person you're gonna be. Yeah, it means every time I come to the table on any issue, I'm bringing my experiences as a as a young person, as a gen z Er, as a young black person in the South, of the young black Latino person in the South, right, all these different parts that make up who we are. I'm going to bring to the table because that's the whole reason I wanted to

run for Congress. And I think, you know, when we talk about these shootings, of bring the perspective of, as you said, bringing a part of what I call the mass shooting generation, which I know is really morbid and it's orrible to think about, but it's it's really one

of the key factors. Every time I speak with a gen z or sometimes, like especially when we're out in college campuses, I try to ask folks, you know, can you just tell me, like, what do you think some of the defining moments of our generation are almost always, and again this is anecdotal, but almost always, someone's gonna bring up some incident where someone has died, whether it be a school shooting or George Floyd or Brianna Taylor. I mean, it's horrible. These are like the peaks of

our timeline as a generation. So when when I go to Congress and when you know, people at my age go to office. They're bringing that perspective. It's such an interesting, you know, strange thing. Democrats have had this much older leadership and now all of a sudden we have a cheem Jefferies coming in, who is younger. Will there be some culture clash there? I don't think so. But also, you know, I haven't been in the cap is long

enough today we have a culture class? Would work? I mean, we'll see, right, But I but I think that from what I've seen in a lot of these meetings, the caucus has a lot of respect for the three leaders coming in Leader Jeffreys and whip Clerk or future of Clerk and Paguilar and so you know, maybe there'll be some culture some minor culture classes, but from what I see, I think people are pretty united around this leadership and are ready to kind of, you know, follow their lead

as we come into this you know, narrowly held Republican House. You were an uber driver, you know, now you're a legislator. Where is your appetite for regulation here? Yeah? You see you're talking about in terms of Uber Yeah, well, in terms of big tech and more importantly, you know, we're in this moment where labor unions are coming back and thank god, and where workers are are demanding really livable

living wage again and there is money for it. It's just you know, so I'm curious what your take is on that you've been now on, but you will have been on both sides of regulation. Yeah, well, no, I think the regulation is extremely important, and I think when we regulate, it needs to be a worker centered and

consumer centered. I mean, we've been seeing that the power of the consumer in in the marketplace has been diminishing, and I think a lot of it has to do with unchecked big tech um and monopolies, and we see the issues rise day after day, both the kind of on the national scale and then also at the local scale.

So I think the regulation is really important. I mean, if we look at a lot of these ride share companies, you know, I think a lot of times people are attracted to you know, the gig economy has been on the rise for a while. I mean it's said my generation said to go through. I think fifteen to twenty jobs in our lifetime might even be more at this point.

I think a lot of that has to do with the economy, but we just got to make sure that it's not done at the cost of exploiting workers, and I think we see that with a lot of our ride share drivers who look a lot of them, including myself, liked the whole, you know, self employed thing because you can really clock in and out when you want. However, there are ways to still achieve the same system but have healthcare and be able to rely on one job and not have three. Those are my thoughts on it.

I think the regulation is really important. I think it's we're seeing something what's going on with Twitter right now, which Twitter is more than a small tech company, right this is like a public form at this point, and see the misinformation, disinformation being spread around and the hate speech going up, and it's, uh, something that needs to be dealt with. I come from generation acts and it turns out we suck. But I feel like your generation doesn't suck. Yeah, I mean, you know, I I think

my generation is a great generation. You Know what I always talk about is I always think about the timeline

of gen Z Right. I remember growing up and seeing Occupy Wall Street on the news and asking my dad like, why are those people sleeping outside on the street, and then him explaining what wealth, any quality is an element three school and growing up with that in my mind, and then Trayvon Martin being murdered about thirty minutes away from my home here in Orlando where he's murderin Sandford, getting that talk for my parents, learning that at a

young age, Columbine Park Lynn Paul's George Floyd. You know, all these different things kind of stack up, and seeing things online and on Twitter, and being in this generation where we've been in through all in technology, our entire lives, I think builds a kind of trauma filled generation. But the exciting thing is that despite that, we want to be a part of the solution, right and uh, we don't wanna We don't just want to sit around. And

I think that's the important thing. That's why the youth vote, even though it's not the largest block right now, it is the largest that's ever been in the history of our country at this point in time, and I think that means something, um and I think it's really exciting. But it's not just up the gen z, right, It's not just the young people. It's all of us coming together, multi racial, multigenerational movement for the world we believe in. And I think just for a lot of young people.

That world is when where we're doing what we need to do to positively impact, you know, multiple generations in the future. You went to Georgia to campaign with poor Reverend Warnock for his fourth or fifth election within the last two I mean, this man, no one should have to run for Senate this many times. Tell me about how important the South is to Democrats and what this Senate seat means. Yeah, I mean the South. I think

it should be very important to Democrats. I mean, I think we see this is a point of contention for a lot of folks on the national scale and even locally across the country. And I think it's easy for people to see numbers and just completely discounted state. I mean, I come from Florida, so I have a lot of them. But you know, if you spoke with some one six, eight, ten years ago, you know, and you said Georgia is gonna flip before Florida, you know, people would probably say

you're crazy or something. And I think what that shows is number one, you can't you shouldn't fully give up on a state. I understand strategic spend ending. I'm not saying let's you know, we see a lot of these races where people run against Republican boogee men, you know, or you know, just like really bad Republicans in very red districts, raise a ton of money and then it ends up really going to waste, to be honest, most

of it. So I understand strategic spending, but I think you can view trends and decide whether or not you should add more resources versus take resources away. And I think the South shows a lot of promise. Florida does, even though we had this kind of anomaly this past election cycle, it was always within a percentage point all of our races. When we look at Georgia, it's a great model for what can be done in these states.

Right Georgia, I wouldn't to consider Georgia blue state right now, but it really is a battle around state where we have both Senate seats, and I think that is promising. So people shouldn't give up on the South. If Democrats are able to take the South, we never lose the presidency.

And I know that's like you know, people, I think of it as a big risk for a high reward, and I guess it is, but I mean, I don't think it's that risky to invest in people, especially people in the South, right, And it's never risky to invest in people. One last question, you're adopted. Yes, you are from so many different cultures, right, and you have parents from different cultures, you know, like, how does that inform your world view? Yeah, in a couple of different ways.

I mean I dealt with kind of problems of identity for a portion of my life. I was raised Cuban and going to Miami almost every weekend, and Spanish was my first language, and so it was just kind of coming to terms of who I was. You know, my mom is Cuban. My dad is like white American, but he was raised in like Bermuda, and so he played steel pan for a living and he's a musician, right, like he's Cornali. He's one of my fun facts. My dad actually played with Tiny Tim and so if you

know who Tiny Tim is, Cass he's impressed. This is where you get your good taste from. Yeah, no, A hundred percent, A hundred percent. I mean I grew up listening to music. I grew up listening to the Beach Boys and Stevie Wonder and Carol King and you know, all the jazz artists that he introduced me to. So either way, there's always been a lot going on in

my life. So whether it was you know, struggling to come to terms with my blackness, whether it was really you know, thinking about more recently like my biological family and what they went through and how does that connect to my work, It's really part of who I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm really so great to have you on. I hope you'll come back. Yeah, of course, thank you for having

me on. Jessie Cannon. You know you're not having a good day when you see your face splashed across every single news site with the caption I know it doesn't mean much to say that I'm sorry, and so I'm dedicating as much of myself as i can to doing right by customers. So we are talking about Forbes has obtained a draft of Sam Bankman Freed's testimony AK Sam Bank Run fraud, Yes SBF the Internet huckster crypto criminal.

He has a statement here of self pity being stuff that he was not allowed to deliver to Congress because he was arrested in his home in the Bahamas before he could testify. People in the conspiracy industrial complex have already decided that he was arrested before he could give testimony. But I'm telling you the truth. This man has talked so much. There's so much incriminating stuff out there that I don't think anyone's going to have any trouble with this.

And there's already been lots of criminal charges filed and he is probably going to go jail for a long long time. Musk said he's going to be safe because he gave a lot of political donations to both Democrats and Republicans and it turned turns out, Um, he's very sorry, but also he feels that it's not really fair. So for today's moment of fuckery, it's the guy with the messy hair who stole but jillions and zillions and trillions. He stole what Tesla Stock used to be worth. That's

it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.