Is Cristina Tzintzun Texas Democrats' Best Bet for the Senate?

The state is changing fast, urbanizing, getting more educated and more diverse. In two thousand eighteen, Democrat Beto O'Rourke almost one Texas's other Senate seat. Perhaps no single person better embodies the state's new reality than Christina. Since her mother is a Mexican immigrant, her father is Anglo Texan, as was his father before him. Zin Zoon grew up working class and put herself through the University of Texas. She

crossed the border constantly, growing up literally and figuratively. She believes that being bicultural and her solid resume of liberal activism will carry her to Washington. Let me state upfront that I am supporting her in that effort. I first read about since Soon six years ago in the New York Times in a piece about the work she was doing at the Workers Defense Project to help immigrants abused and robbed by unscrupulous employers. Can I tell that story

right ahead? So the reporter had told me, Alec Baldwin sometimes calls people that I write about in the New York Times. I thought, Oh, that's cool, and then I had this great voicemail from you, who the hell picks up the phone and says, I want to learn more about what you do and knew how to pronounce my name right, which is pretty com plicated. My mom told me when that happens, she's very religious that, oh, Senior Alex, he came into your life because he's going to be

a very important person in your life. That's what my mom told me. Were trying our best. I started giving the Workers Defense Project contributions that year and encouraging her to run for office. I kept encouraging her even as she had a son, moved and started Jolt, a nonprofit organizing young Latinos for political action. Then last year some of the best political minds in Texas won her over. She has much of Betto's top staff working on her primary campaign. But even with a great story and the

best staff, running for office is still awful. So a very good friend of mine is Jim high Tower, that was one of the last Democrats to hold and win office statewide. And I said, people are trying to ask me to run for Senate. You know, what do you think? And he said, we're gonna have to fundraise all the time. There's going to be political in fighting and you're gonna be traveling everywhere. And I said, well, that sounds like

my current job. So a lot of the skill set that I had at JOLD, I had to get comfortable asking for money. Have you become comfortable and I've become more comfortable. I think it's something always that's still uncomfortable if you don't really come for money. I think when I believe in something, I'm good at it, and what's the skill? Meaning you just look the person in the eyes, shake their head and say, Bob, I need from you.

But like you know how, I think, to me, it's always an argument about whatever you were fighting for asking people to invest in, about why it's a sound investment. Usually I'm used to asking it for an organization, but I realized also over time people were entrusting their resources in me. I think the best compliment I ever got from a thunder was I could squeeze water from a rock. So if you gave me five dollars, you knew that that five dollars was going to be well spent and

I would make much more out of it um. But I also, even though I was uncomfortable asking for money in the beginning, I would always think about why I was there, who I was there for, And I think about that when I was doing that originally for undocumented workers that were incredibly poor. If I didn't ask for

them and take up that space, then who would. So when I think about our political process now, and that sadly, I am not judged first on my work, ethic or ideas, but I am judged first by how much I raise. That is the game I'm in, But I want very seriously the ideas I stand up for that they represent a whole class of people that feel disaffected and unheard.

The best that could happen is we change the course of history and my state and I make millions of people feel heard and seen and actually have a representative that truly represents them. When did the moment come and you said, wonder what it would be like to be in the Senate? I'm going to do it. What was that like? So I think there were I was on a walk and when I was asked to run, I thought, no,

this is a terrible time for me personally. As I went on a long walk, and I thought, well, it was the wrong time for me personally when I became executive director of Workers Defense Project and I was never and you kept telling me it's never a good time. And then I thought, well, it wasn't the right time for me when I was six months pregnant and launched Choalt.

So this is not the right time for me because I have a two year old little boy I raised by myself, my son Santhy, And I thought, well, sometimes the personal moment is not right, but the political moment is, and that there are moments that are greater than ourselves. And when I imagine what it could mean for my son to change the state, the politics of my state and country from this scene, he would be very proud of me and it would make his life and the

lives of millions of other people. Better. Let's say you win. You mean when I went that question, let me take to so after you win, what's your issue? What do you want to get started on? You want to dig into what? Well, in the state of twenty nine million people, I don't think that there's one single issue that I'm going to dig in on. I'm going to go for rottle to lead on climate change, on healthcare, income inequality, and immigration. Those are the top issues that are not

just my state faces, but the country faces. And I think that Texans and our country deserve of a Senate leader that comes from my state that's actually going to be a champion of those issues. Um, for those people who voted for Corning in the last election, what do you say to them to get them to vote for you? Well, I have some donors that voted for cornin Um, people

that have contributed to my campaign. The look a state as big as ours can dream big because we are big and we deserve someone that actually is going to fight for our families. That if I were John Cornyn, I would be embarrassed to be our senior senator. We are the state with the highest uninsured rate. We are the state that works more hours than most people in

other states with it were one of the poorest. We are a state that's incredibly diverse, and yet he's been demonizing and villainizing our communities and those are Texans, So he has no business being our senator anymore. That he may represent the Texas of the past, but not the Texas of today. UM, describe your opponent for the primary. Tell me about her, m J. Hangard, who ran for Congress and lost and is a more moderate Democrat than me, and me and MJ are considered to be the folks

that are leading in the pack. What do you have that she doesn't have? Well, I think I know how to speak to the diversity of the state. I've spent a decade and a half traveling the state and working on real issues that Texans face that most politicians don't even know exist. And I've also learned how to bring people together to solve their problems, to make government work for them. In a state where government has not wanted to work for them. UM has not wanted to work

for anybody but just a privileged few. I'm a person that knows how to not just bring people together but truly solve their real life problems and has done it time and time again when people have told us that we have no place in the halls of government and made government work for ordinary people. And there's very few people in our state that have done that. I want to talk about Texas as you understand Texas and how

you want to teach me. I mean, I view Texas as a place where Republicans run rough shot over everything, and they jerrymandered that they control both houses in the in the state House. Correct, that's correct. Yet, however, Rourke want in the Houston suburbs, which is tough to do. How do you think he got even purple people, let alone red state types to vote for him. Um. So, I think that there's an image of Texas that people

have that is not the true Texas story. The true Texas story is one of a state that's very diverse, very urban, rapidly changing. But when people think about Texas, they usually think about us in a singular way of people like my white grandfather, which was a cowboy. Um. And the truth is that the state is you know, you have a city like Houston, it's one of the most diversities in the entire country. You have um one in three Texans that are immigrants, whore children of immigrants.

Of the state's population is Latino, It's majority people of color at this point. The Texas I want to show is that if anyone ever saw the Houston Anthony Bourdaine episode, he went into in Houston, he went to a keen san yetta, He went to African refugee communities that were cooking. He went and saw Indian communities, he went to barbecue, He went to all different kinds of community that all just live in one city. Um, that's the Texas story that I want to tell the Texas that I see

every day across the state. This very rich, culturally diverse state that I think isn't just the Texas of today, but as the future of America. So what Bethlo tapped into when he ran was understanding embracing that diversity. For the previous two decades, Democrats had run in Texas as Republican light, believing that they had to get out unicorn swing Republican voters. And what Betheo showed was that you

he ran as a progressive in the state. He was for medicare for all, he was talking about respecting immigrants, UM and communities of color standing up against police brutality. That was a very different race that any Democrat has run in recent memory in our state. So I was recruited to run for Senate by some of the folks

that ran Betho Senate campaign. We're tapping into some of those really proven strategies about in a state of twenty nine million people UM that is geographically and demographically expansive as our state, do you have to get to scale with a massive volunteer operation. So they had thousands and thousands of people knocking on doors as volunteers and they raised eighty million dollars for the Senate race in Texas and UM, We're going to be doing that broad scale

effort as well. And there were significant increases in populations that are very critical to flipping Texas. So a five increase in the youth vote. Texas has one of the youngest demographics in the country. By our next governor's race, one in three eligible voters is under the age of thirty in Texas UM and another significant portion is the Latino vote, the community that I come from that I've worked on getting out both the youth and Latino vo in Texas, and there was a two increase in the

Latino vote. That was just the tip of the iceberg. We've already had five congressional incumbent Republicans say they're not going to run. I don't think it's because they want to play more golf. It's because they see the political and demographic shifts happening in the state are happening so

rapidly that they don't believe they have a shot again. Um, you mentioned a two d and fifty increase in the Latino vote in the state, and to some extent, you were responsible for that with the work that you did with Jolt. Correct. Yeah, So I let an organization called Jolt that was focused on increasing the Latino vote in our state, knocking on tens of thousands of voters doors, registering them to vote, and also really talking about our power.

What I found talking to younger Latino voters as they would turn on the TV and they would see Trump villainizing our community, saying we were outsiders in our own home and state, and so it made them feel like a minority. We always assume that Latinos no, especially in states like Texas, that they're the sleeping giant. But I found that they were shocked that we made up of the state's population. They had no idea that half of

all those turning eighteen in Texas were Latino. So when you exposed to them their power, their assets, instead of their deficits, people begin to own that pour. And so I think that that's what we're really going to try and tap into in my race, is exposing to people why we're under attack and assault, whether we're in the LGBTQ community, the Muslim or immigrant community, of the Latino community, collectively, we have tremendous power to shift the course not just

of our state's history, but our entire country's history. What kind of response do you think you're getting as a woman running statewide in Texas, which has had a couple of women who have shown but I had a famous and Richards governor. Yes, um, women actually have a distinct advantage in democratic primaries as candidates. A lot of people don't know that because our our democratic primary basis so female.

But I think that there are ways that as a woman, I'm going to be underestimated that male candidates wouldn't have to deal with. I get questions about being a single mom. If if I'm a good mom that no one would ever ask a male candidate, they would thank him for his sacrifice, whereas me, they would want to villainize me for my sacrifice, even though I make time for my

son every single day. One of the cool things I've had to do that I feel like I'm learning and documenting my campaign is how to run a modern mom campaign. So pretty much everywhere I go in Texas, I have my two year old little son with me. He goes to events. Luckily, he's a total extrovert and loves crowds. Um. So he's a he is a good dancer, um. He comes to events with me. I'm teaching him how to say vota mama um for the Spanish language. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's fun to figure out how to be a mom and be a politician, And I think it makes me a better candidate because I'm always thinking about my son and what it is for him to be with me, and also what other parents are going through. Um. And it also shows other women that they can do this to that this doesn't have to be a career that only an elite, privileged few get to do. Because when we allow that to happen. I don't think we get

the diverse democracy that we need or deserve. You've explained how Texas political picture is not as uh just a wash of red as people might expect. However, he was reelected in two thousand fourteen, correct CORNU, and he defeated Alamele pretty soundly. He beat him. I think what they told me it was like sixty two thirty four or something like that. It was a It was a winning and I'm wondering, did you study that race? Did you

learn about what Alameile did? And when when you're working on these kinds of things that you guys take a glance backward and see what Alamile did that he might let have done as well. We did a deep autopsy over the last several years. So in that race, the Texas of today is very very different. Um. You have a state now where Republicans used to be able to hold on to power with the hope that no one would come out and vote. Right. He won by a landslide,

but one by a landslide was a minority of voters participated. UM. Now Republicans know they can no longer count on holding onto power that they might actually vote. Yeah, if they have to win by a mandate, they're not sure they can do that. UM. And so you've seen huge surge over the last two cycles, especially from younger and Latino voters, and UM suburban women as well coming out and voting for Democrats. Very fed up with especially in the state

as diverse as ours. If you go to the suburbs in Texas, you're going to find communities that aren't just white. They're like all different shades, all different types of people, especially if you go into Houston. Those are their neighbors that they don't understand why the Trump administration or John Cornyn or Ted Cruz are aligning themselves with demonizing their neighbors when we make up such a people of color make up such an important part of the state's population.

So we know that if we're gonna win, we have to get more young people and more Latinos how to vote in Texas. There is no way any Democrat wins without doing that in our state. How does the Latino community handle the gender issue? Yeah, so it was fascinating when I was at Workers Defense Project, I was organizing construction workers, which is a nineties six percent male dominating

to industry. So UM, nearly all of our members, all of our constituents, were men, and I actually found that they not only accepted my leadership, but they rejoiced in my leadership UM and that they very much were supportive of me as a leader in their community. UM. And so I know that the Latino vote is going to be with me in this state because I see our power, our potential, and I also see what we go through

every single day. I was just in UM Dallas last night and a young woman at an event came up to me. She's never vote, never been politically involved, neither has her mother, but they heard me speak and they wanted their picture taken with me. They didn't even know who John Corny was. They had to look up as picture, but they were ready and mobilized to vote UM. And I went to another event in the valley, which is

our border area. I was given award for a Latina Trailblaze Award via statewide network of Latino women, and they were like Grandma's crying about the fact that there was going to be a young Latina that understood their reality because we don't really count Ted Cruz. That's Christina zin Soon candidate for the Democratic nomination in next year's Texas

Senate race. Since Soon has spoken out in praise of Bernie Sanders, she wrote an article this year dissecting how he's made Medicare for all a mainstream issue for Democrats. It's something Bernie sounded proud of himself when we sat down for Here's the thing. Healthcare is a right in this country. We spend little fortune on healthcare per person. We pay by far the highest prices of the world for prescription drugs. Question, why aren't we doing what every

other major country on Earth is like? Why do you think we're not well? Obviously it has to do with the power of the insurance companies and the drug companies and the whole medical industrial complex. My full conversation with Bernie Sanders is in our archives. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. I'm Alec Baldwin back now with organizer and Senate candidate Christinas and Soon. I was born in a very small town called Moxa, Hello Ohio.

My parents were too poor to have me in a hospital, and so I was born at home um with my mother and father and a doctor that was very nice that came and delivered me. And what did your dad do for the first few years of my life? He sold jewelry from Mexico, UM at festivals and door to door sometimes, and my mother took care of me and my siblings. You grew up in your home, it was tough, and things with your dad were tough, but you learned some things from him as well. Correct. Yeah, I love

my father. You know, he's the best ad that I could ever ask for, because I think you only get one. So what did you learn from him? So? My dad taught me how to be tough. My parents are divorced. I was joking because someone was trying to get my parents to do a political ad together and they haven't spoken in twenty years. I said, this might be the one time politics brings a family back together. Be you know, my dad and mom they had a rough marriage and it was hard on me and my siblings. Um, how

many siblings do you have? So? Uh, my brother and sister that I grew up with, and I have a half sister and a stepsister, so five total. Um, I'm the family member that speaks to everyone. Um, and the yeah I can if you can be in my family, be the one family member that speaks to everyone and sends messages back and forth. I think we can handle the Senate. You know. My dad taught me about resiliency

and I think also forgiveness, which is really important. I am my only sibling that speaks to my dad, UM, and I think it makes me a much better person to have his love, his light um in my life. UM. It has yeah. Yeah. And where is he? He lives in Columbus, Ohio. He's in Senny, Ohio, Sonny, Ohio. Yeah, but he You know, my dad is like incredibly brilliant. My first books that my dad ever gave me about

politics or civil rights came from my father. He gave me Um Malcolm X's biography to read when I was in high school. My dad gave me My dad did not give me Eldridge Clever Um, but he gave me that book. He also gave me Anti Woman by Bell Hooks. And he always encouraged me to be proud of who I am and where I came from. And my dad also taught me that human beings are complicated. I don't

seek perfection and anything I do, I seek progress. And my father taught me that too, and I think that that's made me be able to be imperfect in my work. But know that trying and failing is better than not trying at all. You're the one that reconciled with your dad. How did that happen? How are you able to do that? Um? How was I able to do that? UM? I think forgiveness is one of my gifts. I think that I recognize that human beings are complicated, that we are all contradictions,

that no one is purely good or bad. And he never abandoned me, um, And so he's imperfect, but so am I and I love him for the best dad that he knew how to be. Who made the first move? UM? I think probably it was me. I think it was probably it would have been me. UM. I feel like when you reconcile, it doesn't just like free the other person, It frees you from carrying a weight that you don't need to carry. And so I think it's made me a better, stronger person. And I can call my dad

at any hour at any time. You know, I've gone through some challenging times and he's been there all along the way with me. There is no one that will love you as much as your parents, I think, in this life. And so to take one of your parents out of your life, um for their imperfections if you can. You know, everyone's situation is different. But I think that my dad taught me also that forgiveness is powerful and

forgiveness freeze yourself. Um, and for him, I'm eternally grateful for that gift in lesson because I learned it a lot earlier than most people learned it in their lives. When did you relocate to Texas? So when I was about one and a half, we moved to Dallas. We moved to oak Cliffe, which was a working class neighborhood, and I lived there until I was close to five and we moved back to Columbus, Ohio. My dad went

to high school in Texas. He had two parents that were divorced, one lived in Ohio, one lived in Texas. And my mom is the oldest of nine kids from a very very poor, farm working family in southern Mexico. And my dad was traveling through Mexico in the seventies with a bunch of other students from ut Austin, hitchhiking backpacking around and he met my mother, UM and so I got this great upbringing. My white grandpa used to say we were pure bred Irish Mexican Americans. The new

term I've learned on the campaign trails. People told me you can use the term Mike Mexican, so Mexican. It gave me this great view into the world that I think a lot of people don't have. So I grew up in between one world that was very white, upper middle class, one that was very brown and poor, and I got different lessons. I got to see that people, at the end of the day just all want the

same things for their children. And I also got to see growing up, when I would go into doctors offices or meet with teachers, holding the hand of my mother, who spoke English with an accent and was dark skinned, we would be received differently than when we would go in with our father, who was white. And that taught me that there were different rules for different sets of people, and that they weren't based necessarily on how hard you worked or um based on any other characteristics besides where

you came from and what you looked like. Where did you live during your high school years? I lived in Columbus, Ohio. I went to one of the best high schools, public schools, and Columbus called Upper Arlington. I hated it. I would skip school regularly to go to the library and read books. It was a nerd. And when you were done with school, where did you go to college? I went to Austin Community College, UM, and then I went to UT Austin and studied Latin Americas. You were all if you were

all four years in Columbus. You spent your entire high school career in Columbus. What's the draw that took you back to Texas? And you keep coming back to Texas? So I hated cold weather, and I also didn't like Ohio very much UM at the time, and my parents used to tell me that I would love the city

of Austin, Texas. You know, I couldn't remember going from when I was two or three years old, but I would look up articles about it in high school and every day I would look up the weather in Austin, and my parents told me it had some of the things I love most, which is year around sunshine, UH, lots of Mexicans and great food. And so I moved to Austin when I was twenty one. Actually I didn't

know a single soul. I packed up a suitcase UM, took a plane and went and lived at the youth hostel and cleaned until I could find a place to live and work. And that's how I ended up in Austin. I didn't know anyone when I moved there. What's the first thing you engaged with? Workers? Defense on fund is not your first project, where it is, it's one of the first. So the first things I did, beside finding

housing as I immediately started volunteering UM. I became an intern at several different organizations working with immigrants, and I found this organization that was just a volunteer project, like a legal clinic, helping workers mostly working in construction that wouldn't be paid for their work UM or we're being paid to three dollars a dollar an hour systematically. Yeah.

I remember walking in when I was twenty one. I went to be a translator, and I thought that there'd be a few people, and it was a packed room, and every week there would be a new room of people coming in every story, just like you would leaving. You would cry after the first few times of being there, because I just couldn't believe that human beings would treat other human beings so badly. I remember the first case I worked on was for these workers that worked at

a restaurant. They were making about like a dollar fifty an hour. Um, if you totaled up how many hours they worked. They worked every single day. They only had like evenings off on Sundays. And when we called the employers that you have to at least pay the minimum wage, which at the time was five fifteen an hour, it wasn't a great wage either. UM. Their response was they should feel lucky that they have a job, and if they don't like how they're being treated, they should crawl

back to Mexico where they came from. And so it shocked me as a young person to know that this was the economic system we had created, where we were willing to accept undocumented workers labor, but not their humanity. Um. There's a beautiful quote from Frederick Douglas, slavery also hurt those that enslaved people, that it took away their humanity.

And I feel like this system we created around undocumented workers in Texas also hurt our state's humanity and literally our economy was being built on the backs of undocumented workers. We had workers dying of heat exhaustion in Texas because it gets very hot and working twelve thirteen, fourteen hour days.

And um, we passed in Dallas and in Austin the right to paid rest breaks because there was no law at the state or local level, And so that covers roughly two and fifty quarter million workers now benefit from that. Laws about something that got by you that you wished you had accomplished. We did help raise safety standards, but the death rate and the construction industry still stayed very high. So in Texas every two and a half days a

construction worker is killed on the job. You have to understand in California they have nearly double the workforce that we do, and they have a third of the number of deaths. No state got anywhere as close as we did, UM with the number of people being just killed on the job, many times not even money to pay to

send the bodies home. Anything understood that lobbyists or associations, whatever you want to call it, organizations related to the building industry, they get things done the way they want them done. Yeah, And in Texas, one of the largest contributors to the Republican Party has consistently been the construction industry. Bob Perry was one of the wealthiest people in our state,

was the largest individual homebuilder until he passed away. He was the largest single contributor to the Republican Party and candidates in our state. So the irony was not lost on me as a young person that here we had politicians that were link to scapegot undocumented immigrants, um. Not willing to protect their labor, um, not willing to protect their humanity, but we're willing to accept the economic resources that they helped create for their campaigns. Now, I always

approach these things in terms of two phases. Phase one is you think about, boy, what would it be like And these are my words, by the way, boy, what would it be like to be in the Senate or governor, you know, statehouse, president, whatever you're I would love for you to run for president. Well, I would love to run for president, but I wouldn't win. That's the problem. I think you would win. I don't think. I think. I think, actually, in all seriousness, I think I'm the

only person that could beat Trump. I think I'm the only person that could beat Trump, because I think you really need to be able to in a modified way fight him the way he fights, you have to really be I mean everybody that's running. Now, I look at all of them, I say, well, there's another job you should be. You should be attorney general, you should be

on the Summe Court, you should be the secretary of State. Uh. One or two of them might have a chance of beating Trump, but it's not something that's a slam duck. And I'm really really tired by the way of And I'll get this off my chest because it's interesting to talk to you about this, which is, I'm really really tired of a lot of people who are running for president. They've got a lot of big ideas, and I haven't heard one convincing thing from Sanders, from Warren, none of them.

How they're going to pay for it. Do you think that's a problem. So when I think about the reason part of the reason that Democrats lost in there are numerous reasons, of course, but one of the big reasons, coming from a state like Ohio and also working with peign working class people, is that Democrats were not, for a long time willing to talk about the deep economic pain that the majority of Americans feel. Um Americans don't have more than a thousand dollars in savings a thousand dollars.

There are certain basic things that Americans want that I don't think is asking too much. I don't think that in the richest nation in the world, that it too much to ask that everyone be able to go to the doctor when they are sick and have the highest quality healthcare. We have a system right now where we have some of the worst health outcomes of any industrialized nation, and yet we pay the most. I mean, by any measure,

that is a complete failure. So I think that the debate that Democrats are having about what are the basic rights and fundamental goods that every American should have is the right one. How you pay for it is also a good question to ask. Right now, people are already paying a lot for their healthcare when they pay co pays and deductibles and premiums, or when you look at the fact that how much we spend in our national budget on military and the shrinking portion we spend on education.

I see the American people as an asset to our economy, and right now we don't measure them as an asset. I feel like as Democrats, people are unwilling sometimes to call out the real crisis that our nation faces and actually what the real emergencies are. And it's been Democrats sometimes that have said, we want to spend money on more borders security. They had a package several years ago to spend forty plus billion dollars on border security. Well,

I live on the state with miles alongside Mexico. There are American communities that live alongside the border that don't have running water and electricity. That's the crisis on the border. Um, this has the highest uninsured rate in the country, some of the worst health outcomes, the worst infrastructure. That's the crisis that border communities face, not from families that are hungry and tired and that want a better life. I think that, um, we have a democracy and we have capitalism,

and there's a constant friction between the two. But where that that friction creates choices where you choose one or the other, and they're always choosing capitalism of a democracy, You often wonder how much longer can it last? I mean, I think we're at a breaking proct We are at a break we Trump's election is already a signal that the first snap Yeah, and it's a question of when

runaway inequality happens, you also have the demise of democracy. UM. That's why I think people fear the concentration of wealth because you also, when people have that much money, they have incredible not just wealth, they have incredible political power, and that dilutes everyone else's power and voice and a democracy. UM. I think that we've made some major failures, especially as progressives. We let for a long time Republicans control the debate

about who deserved what in this country. UM. We allowed people to racialize welfare, including democrats. We allowed people to scapegold immigrants in our community and our economy when immigrants and people of color were not why the middle class was shrinking. The middle class was shrinking because corporations were heaping more and more of the wealth at the top and not sharing that wealth with all the workers that

helped produce that wealth for them. In my mind, one of the biggest fundamental changes we need to make as a democracy in a country is to not only judge our economy how well big corporations are doing, but judge our economy by how well ordinary people are doing. How much do they have in savings, um, how much do they have in retirement of their debt ratio. By twenty the figure show that fort of student debt borrowers are going to be in default. That is our next big

economic crisis. The question has been proposed me, do you think it's immoral to be a billionaire? I don't necessary. What I think is a society that does not look at how, by not judging our economy by how what ordinary people are doing. We have concentration of wealth that is a demise to our democracy. Um. Facebook employs what employees. Um, Yet they're one of the richest corporations in the whole world.

Because they have so few employees, were not having enough of their wealth redistributed through our economy to have a strong economy. So I think it's also a question of like when does something become a monopoly. It's not to me about the individuals. To me, it's about the structure of us as a society, and are we building a strong structure for a strong society, for a strong democracy, for a strong economy. Right now, the concentration that we

have is not building. They'll go full throttle until everything is destroyed. And the only lever to change that, I think is government. It's a bold and controversial vision of what government can be from Christina itsin soon. She thinks Texas is ready for it. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing