Wake that answer up in the morning club.
Yeah, it's the world most dangerous morning show to Breakfast Club. Charlamagne the God just hilarious. DJ Envy is not here today, but we got a very special guest. The vice chairman of the DNC and the co founder of the March for Our Lives, David Hodge is here.
It is like the pig.
Okay, okay, I always see the two gs, and I don't know if it's Hodge alcohol.
Good to see you man.
You know, I really appreciate a lot of the things that you've been doing because you are challenging the democratic establishment, and I just think we need more of that.
Yeah, I certainly agree.
I think the fact of the matter is right now, we have seen last election, we lost voting share with nearly every single demographic out there, and we also lost against Donald Trump of all people. Right, And if that's not a sign that we need to dramatically change, I
don't know what is. So that's really what we're out here trying to do is help to elevate a new generation and also make sure that nobody feels like, you know, that they can just be in their position of power forever, because ultimately the democracy last I checked, right, and it's about making sure that we have the best representation possible in every district.
Do you feel like the democratic establishment uses young activists as mascots more than partners.
Certainly, at times it can't happen. I mean, I know for a fact when I started running for this position, you know, there were people who were certainly resistant who I ended up talking to a lot of the time. That was actually one of my favorite parts about running for this position, because when you're running to be a vice chair, you have to call people and obviously earn their vote, and one of my favorite parts about it was talking to the people who at first did not
want to vote for me at all. I mean, there was one person who I talked to who actually said, in one of my first calls that I made to ask for the support, that I'd never talked to this person before this that said that I should not do this. I cannot win, and that there was absolutely no pathway to victory for me, and that they would not vote
for me. That was the first call that I had, very welcoming, right But what I said to them was like, I understand that you're not in a position where you feel like you're not gonna be able to suppor me, But ultimately I care a lot about the constituency group that you represent, so I want to keep talking to you because even if you don't vote for me, I do care about what you care about. And ultimately they ended up coming around and supporting me and being a huge supporter as well.
And you were a survivor of the Parkland shooting, with that would spark you know, the thought to get into politics.
Yeah, I mean before this, I wanted to be a journalist because I wanted to scare the crap out of politicians that I thought were corrupt as hell and didn't do anything. Ultimately, but I realized after Parkland, when my
classmates and I mobilized. For people that may not remember, we had one of the largest school shootings in American history happen at my high school in Parkland, and my classmates and I were obviously devastated after that, but I would say just as much as that we were furious because we grew up hearing from our politicians their thoughts and prayers over and over again after these shootings, but they weren't really doing anything right.
I was.
I think I was in middle school when Sandy Hook happened. I wasn't even alive when Columbine happened.
That's how long this has been going on for.
And we went out there and we didn't say go out and vote for Democrats or Republicans necessarily. We said, go out and vote for more religis leaders that represent you and your values right. And what we saw was one of the largest youth photo turnouts in American history.
We took back the House. And what we saw as well is after Parkland, we didn't go out there, even though there was a lot of the polsters and consultants and pundits that brought the Democratic Party to the place that it is right now, who told us, no, you can't talk about taking on the NRA, the organization that stops these gun laws from changing a lot of the time, insanely, you can't talk about banning assault weapons because that's too unpopular.
Because this is Florida, it's a Republican state. Gun laws get weaker here because we did the opposite of what all those purported experts told us to do. We actually did change gun laws in Florida.
Yeah, because you're not fixing the problem if you don't go after.
Exactly, you have to address it. And because of that, we raised the aged buy a gun to twenty one. For context of the shoot at my high school. He couldn't buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer because he wasn't twenty one yet, but he could purchase an AR fifteen. And then we passed a red flag law that can
disarm people that are risked themselves and others. That has been used over nineteen thousand times in the state of Florida to disarm people that, for example, threaten to shoot up a high school or harm their intimate partner, you know, and thousands of lives have been saved from that. And what I learned from that experience is that it's actually summed up well by Dolores Erta, who I asked one
time at a protest. She's a major civil rights activist obviously and later in the farm workers who have been amazing person. I asked her, what is the most important thing that you need to tell any young person or activist that wants to make change that they need to know? And what she said to me is it doesn't matter whether or not the change is actually possible. It's whether or not you can make people believe that the change
is possible more than anything. And that's what we did after Parklyn, and I think what we're trying to do now is take that generation of young people who have been let down in so many ways by their political system, whether it's through gun violence inside of school or outside of school, whether it's the housing crisis, the student debt crisis, are so much more, and show them that there's a new generation of people coming in. What are people like
Congressman Maxwell Frost. I don't know if you know this person. He is the youngest member of Congress. He started he was working for March for Our Lives while I was in college, and he called me up and he said he wanted to run for Congress. And I said, that's awesome, But you know you're twenty four, right, You have to be twenty five to get elected to Congress. And Maxwell, do you know he didn't come from some super fancy background. His parents aren't super wealthy or anything like that. He's
just a normal person. And when he was running, he had to uber drive from nine pm to two am every night while running for Congress, and he was running against two former members of Congress, one of whom was a headge fund manager while they were a member of Congress. Not a conflict of interest at all, right, And then the other one had committed tax run while they were in Congress. And Maxwell's written off by the establishment so much. They said, you know, he's a great person, but he
can't win. He can't raise that kind of money. And we helped him raise. I helped him raise about four hundred thousand dollars in his first two quarters. But the thing is the most important thing that somebody needs to run for office is the will, the grit, and the determination to get elected. But they also need a substantial amount of fun in order to get elected. And far too many young people with that griten determination struggle to get there. And that's why we do what we do
with leaders we deserve. Because Maxwell ended up with that determination and that support, becoming the youngest member of Congress, that helps us pearhead an effort to get the Biden administration to aggress to address gun violence in a more
substantial manner. And shortly after I graduated from college, I found myself sitting in the rose Garden at the White House with Congressman Maxwell Frost, who I had just I literally hired from my freshman dorm room, introducing the President of the United States to create something called the Office of Gun Violence Prevention that helped coordinate the federal government's response to gun violence. And they oversaw about a twenty five percent reduction in gun homicides over the course of
about three years from that work. And that's because the pressure that Maxwell helped to put on. But imagine if we had thirty Maxwell's in Congress.
David, going back to the shooting, you were just seventeen when that happened, right, and I can only imagine, like, what was I know you said you guys were furious, But what is something from that day? What do you remember most about that data sticks with you today?
I think what I remember most was just the sense of anger that I had at what had happened. But it was more righteous indignation, kind of like the injustice of what had happened. Because I had spent the past four years in my speech and debate classes, studying, you know, arguing about gun control, for example, and having to argue on both sides of it, both for and against it. You don't get to decide which side you're arguing on,
you have to argue on both. And I was frustrated because I felt like I maybe myself and my classmates could have done something before this because of what we knew from that education that we did it, that could have potentially prevented it. So that's a lot of what I think about, and of course, to the fear that one has when my sister was just fourteen years old that day and she lost four friends, that's really what
I was thinking about. Was for the first time in my life, I I, you know, there wasn't anything that I could do to help my sister feel better other than to try to stop this from happening to other people. And that sense of helplessness is really what I hold on to. But I also remember that the friendship and camaraderie that my classmates and I and the parents and teachers and other people that we worked with had in
order to hold these politicians' feet to the fire. Because if there's anything that I learned from that experience, when I originally went out and started talking about it, I wasn't doing it as an activist. I was doing it as a journalist because I wanted to talk about what happened that day. But I soon realized it wasn't gonna be enough to do that, because you can't just talk about what's wrong. Yeah, you got to make it better and say what needs to be done right and journalists
often can't do that. And what's an even better way of scaring? I like to say, Charlaine, the the only good politician is a scared politician that is afraid of losing their job rightly. And we need a lot more of that. And what's a lot better to do a lot better of a way of doing that than just writing a bad story is running somebody against them or having a massive jet youth voter turnout that helps to defeat the NRA. And that's just what my generation did
in twenty eighteen. People told us, you young people are great, you're really inspirational, but you don't vote, that's the problem. And we said, okay, watch us. So we did, and we ended up defeating more NRAY backed incumbents in the US House than ever before in American history. And in the time sense, we actually passed just fu' all day, the first federal gun law in thirty years as well.
And it's not nowhere near enough. There are still people every day that live in fear of gun violence, students that live in fear of gun violence. And let we have to be clear too, what happened in Parkland is horrifying and should never happen again. But most of the young people that are dying from gun violence aren't dying
in school, and they aren't getting nearly enough attention. And we need to make sure that we're providing a holistic solution so that kids don't feel in danger on their way to school or inside of their classroom at the same time. But not only just focus on one or the other, but focus effectively on both.
Have you encountered more resistance from Democrats or Republicans when trying to push real.
Reform in which sense in terms of reform just a reform period.
I mean, honestly, I think a lot of the challenge is that, I think the resource that our party lacks more than anything, it's not cash. We certainly are good at raising money, right The resource that we lack is courage.
In my opinion, I.
Agree, I think that's the one strategy Democrats have not tried.
And exactly what kills me about that is that think about all the most prolific things that our party has helped to usher in in the past, right, whether it's the social security system, right, Medicaid, or Medicare, which now are getting cut, of course, in part because some of our members of Congress literally passed away in office and that vote very likely would not have gone through.
That just went through.
That is going to cut billions of dollars in funding from medicaid and so much much more. And what I think, what I'm always coming back to is what those people said to us after Parkland, which is, you can't talk about this because it's too bold, it's too out there, it's too much. You need to add, you need to be very incremental.
Who was saying that Democrats are bold?
I mean it was a lot of polsters and consultants and other people on the Democratic side saying, you don't understand, Uh, this is too controversial, you can't push for this. What we did, though, is because we actually spoke authentically about what we actually believed and went out there and said this is what needs to happen. We got Republicans in our state, which was a Republican trifecta on the defense, and we changed gun laws and saved lives. But imagine
if we didn't have that courage. Imagine if we listen to those people that said that we can't over and over again.
Right.
I think part of the reason why I would say one of the last times that we were the strongest as a party was shortly after Barack Obama was elected. And I think part of the reason we had such a massive wave wasn't just because of the recession that we just went through, but it was because it wasn't because he had a message of we can't. We can exactly And that is the most powerful force that we
need to tap into. Is we need to reignite the American people's vision of what kind of country we could be ultimately right, and not just talk about how we're against Donald Trump, of course we are, but talk about what are we trying to build as an alternative right.
And what I think about is, Alex Charlatanne, I'm not a Democrat because I think that we're God's greatest gift or we're perfect by any means, right, It's because I believe in the party that we can be, and I believe in what we have done as a party in those moments when we did have courage, when we passed the Affordable Care Act so that people didn't get kicked off their insurance for a pre existing condition. That's why my father, when he got diagnosed with early on said
Parkinson's disease, didn't get kicked off in his insurance. And then my family didn't go bankrupt because we had the Social Security system that he paid into throughout his life to support him and his family should he get the unfortunate consequences of having a life altering thing like that. But what I also think about is how I ended
up in Parkland in the first place. And that's because when my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's and faced an early medical retirement, we very likely wouldn't be able to continue to afford to live in California, where we lived at the time, because of the housing crisis out there. That's not because of Republicans, right, That's because of Democrats. And then we moved to Florida, and I loved the
consequences of Republicans failure to address gun safety. So I want to make sure that not only are we defeating Republicans, but we're not just defeating them to defeat them, but we're actually doing something with that power to address the housing crisis, to address gun violence, and ensure just more recently, when my dad passed last September, I'm sorry to thank you.
When my dad passed last September, I was reminded of how much more work we have to do because when he was on his deathbed, despite being a Navy helicopter pilot with full VA benefits and a medically retired FBI agent, his cost of care monthly for at home care was nineteen thousand dollars a month. I had to make a spreadsheet to figure out how long my family could afford to keep my dad alive despite all of those things.
And the only reason why we didn't go bankrupt is because he did not live long enough for that to happen. And that is an impossible decision that no person in this country should have to make between caring for a loved one or going bankrupt, or paying for heat or paying for insulin, or getting a college degree or not
having a lifetime of debt, for example. That's why I'm a Democrat, because I know the power of what can happen when we do have courage, when we fight for what we actually believe in, and we don't just cower and say no, we need to do this tiny incremental thing when hundreds of millions of people are struggling around the country right now.
Do you think Democrats are afraid of upsetting wealthy donors even when the issue is life or death like gun reform.
When it comes to gun reform, I don't think the issue is necessarily wealthy donors, To be honest with you, I think that there certainly are conflicts with that. I think the bigger issue that I look at is the fact that we have corporations that are literally giving money to our politics, that are directly incentivized not to address the broken healthcare system for example, right that are directly incentivized to not do all kinds of things that the
American people need. We need our government to fight against special interests, not be in bed with special interests. That's why our candidates, when we support them, leaders we deserve, and the funding that we get to support our candidates, we get funding from two hundred thousand people around the
country with an average donation of twenty two dollars. We don't take money from corporations, and our candidates they don't take money from corporations either, and we say to them as well, if you take money from corporations, we will find a different young person to run against you, and we will primary you to hold you accountable because we have to reform the campaign finance system, because ultimately that is the thing that is keeping all these issues exists,
making them exist at the same time, because ultimately, these politicians are able to stay in their positions of power because they continue to get funding from the NA, They continue to get funding from all these special interests. That stops from making progress and having the courage to adjust those most substantial issues in the first place.
Let me ask a question, David, at what moment did you realize you were more of a threat than an asset to democratic leadership.
I wouldn't say that, I would say that I'm still an asset because I would say that this much is true, right if you were in democratic leadership. I kind of have a strange metaphor for this. But if you're in democratic leadership, it's kind of like being the coach of a baseball team, right, Like, sure, could you go out against a group of fifth graders and hit a home run? Absolutely, But Ultimately, if you can't get other people on base,
right because they can't even swing the bat. Sometimes it's not a matter of what type of bat they're using, it's a matter of can they swing to actually get on base in the first place, And it's a matter of getting new players. Ultimately, it's not a matter of, oh, can we just do more and more training. And I think what we need to do more of in our own party is, yes, we have to fight back to defeat Republicans, but we also need to give people something
true and authentic to vote for. Where we're showing people how the reason you vote for us isn't just so that we have a majority, it's so that we use our majority to help you, right, Because if we stuck with that politics of cowardice, we never would have passed the Affordable Care Act in the first place. We never would have passed so many of the most monumental pieces of legislation then now are helping one hundreds of millions Americans around the country. So, of course there are challenges
with democratic leadership. But what I would say is, especially in the case of somebody like a King Jeffreys, let's get him the majority, so we can see what he can actually do with that majority in the first place.
He's not going to do anything I can see. Here's the thing, and I treat it like anything else. Right, Like you know how they say money doesn't change you, It just it just multiplies.
Whatever you already are.
More power is not going to change these people. If you're a coward with no power, you're going to be a coward with power. We've seen plenty of Democrats who have power who are still cowards.
A game ain't gonna do nothing different with power.
Well, I think if we I think if we have the right people elected that are out there, are going to be able. Ultimately, sometimes it's not a matter of what you want to do when you have to get
elected to those positions within the House. For example, if we get more people elected that are saying no, this is not enough, we have to fight harder that we're we're not just going to stick in our positions of power forever, and we're going to say to you, for example, that if we're going to vote for you, this is what we want to see. Because obviously he has to be elected to be the majority speaker of the House.
By having some of them some more of those young people that are on the front lines of these issues of addressing that I know in those internal deliberations that it's not so much a matter of what he wants to do, It's more a matter of if he wants to get elected. He is going to have to be able to fight harder, and I know that those young people will push him to do that, and if they feel like he's not going to, then they won't vote for it.
Have you ever been directly wanted by anyone in the Democratic Party to stan you leem? I'm like, I'm talking like I know some people say things publicly, but like behind the scenes, have they like, really right.
There?
Certainly are our real challenges so the work that we are doing. But I'm not going to let that stop me. You know, I wouldn't say necessarily that it's like somebody is directly coming to me and saying if you don't stop this, this is going to happen to you, or something like that. But they that's not how a lot of these things work inside of DC. A lot of
the time, it's not necessarily necessarily an overt threat. It is saying it is essentially a tacit threat that we hear a lot of the time knowing that if X thing happens, then why could happen to you?
Right?
Why not call it out? Though? Why not?
Because ultimately it is what I care more about is when there are people that go against me, whether it was for example, in the vice chair race, I know the power for my own work and gun violence prevention of being a bigger person working towards victory. And ultimately, when you do that, a lot of those people start to come around. Because a lot of the time in DC, we have a lot of wind socks that go just whichever way the wind is blowing, right, whichever side that
they think is going to win. And I believe in the politics of being able to reconcile those differences and work together despite what people say. Because what's even more powerful, Charlot Mane, is that when when somebody comes out and tries to go overtly against you, right, and they know that they did that to you, but they see that you start to win, and that's ultimately what they care
most about. Then if you don't go out there and start calling them out publicly, one it's not nearly as divisive, and two, it shows that you're trying to be a real leader, and ultimately they oftentimes feel guilty about it and they want him try to make up for it by working to help you because they want to be on the side of winning, and ultimately that's what we're trying to do here.
If that makes sense.
How do you respond to people to say that your work is too political?
And what could you?
Could you elaborate a little bit?
I mean, because you know, obviously, like to the point that he said, how.
Like you don't really Yeah, you don't like you're you're doing this for selfish reasons and not because you actually care about you know, the whole party if they advance your political career.
No, no, no, So what I'll say.
When I was eighteen, I said that I wanted to run for Congress because I thought that would be the best way to make change. But I realized when I was working with people like Maxwell and other young people around the country how hard it is to raise money and get the resources to get elected. Because of course, courage is that resource that we lack the most. But those courageous people they need cash in.
Order to get elected.
And I could be one person myself to go out there and maybe I get elected to Congress, but ultimately, what is more, what is going to be more beneficial for the future right One, I often do get physically threatened, not necessarily by Democrats, necessarily by any means, but by a lot of people who don't agree with the things that I say about strengthening gun laws. My family and I we got probably over a thousand death threats after the shooting, I would say, between online and directly in
the mill. My house got swatted as well. And what I frankly have to think about is that I can't just be one person doing this right, And there's a whole movement of people out there that are doing this, a whole movement of young people that have gone through these school shootings. And what I want to help do is I don't want to just be one vote that's
out there. I want to help bring in a generation that is truly representative of our generation and not just what you know, somebody who's able to raise as much money as possible to get elected looks like. And that's what we're trying to do with this is look at all the candidates that we supported last cycle, where we helped to elect the youngest person and the Georgia Legislature. Ever,
it's a seventh grade algebra teacher, right. Look at the person who we elected, Dante Pittman in North Carolina, who helped to break the Republican supermajority out there. Look at people like Nadarius Clark in Virginia who broke the Republican majority in the House and help pass all this stuff. So the reason why I'm doing this is because I want to help bring in I don't want to just walk through that door myself and close it behind me.
I don't want to just keep the door open. I want to take the door off the damn hinges and enable it so that future young people don't need to have the door held open for them in the first place. What they need to do that, though, is they need the funding to get elected and make sure that they have their right value so that they're able to reform our campaign finance system. Because what I look at this as ultimately is an insurance policy for the gun safety movement.
Where President Biden's generation, they didn't go through school shooter drills, but they went through a different type of drill. They went through nuclear bomb drills, and they went on to pass some of the largest arms reduction treaties in human history to limit those nuclear weapons. And I think that's important because they felt the anxiety of what it was like to be told by your government just hide on your desk to survive a nuclear bomb and the epic
failure of leadership that that is. And I believe for the difference from our generation is that the bomb is going off multiple times a year, absolutely right, So let's get them elected so that they can lead, like Congressman Frost boldly on this instead of me just being one vote,
because it isn't about me. It's about our generation and the story of are we going to continue having conversations like this in the future where school shootings remain in the headlines, and gun violence remains in the head lines, and so many issues that we should not have to deal with in the richest country in human history remain in the headlines, or we're going to leave them where they belong in history books.
Give me some other names, because you know you keep mentioning in Maxwell Frost, who do you think is the voice of the Democratic Party, or who do you think should be the voice of the Democratic Party, Or is there multiple voices.
Well, I think one there's going to be multiple voices, right. I think one of the great things about our party that also creates some challenges is, look, we are not a cult, right.
We can can't tell in recent years.
Well, sometimes I understand what you're saying, certainly given some of the responses that I've gotten to this, but ultimately we are not a party with somebody like Donald Trump at the top that says you have to believe every single thing right here or else you were excommunicated and we're going to try to destroy your life necessarily.
It's not really that's true, David Well, I've looked at the way people people would really get upset with you if you had anything negative to say about President Biden when he was the one that we should have been speaking out about.
The most right, And I under I completely agree with you. Actually, I think one of the challenges in that regard that we have to address in our politics is that we've created a culture where people are told repeatedly what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear. Right, And what I believe happened in that regard is, look, when you're in the White House and I've seen this in different ways, either in the White House or in
other places. You want to keep your job, and the best way to do that is ensure that you get this person reelected again. And I think what happens far too often in our politics is that people get too comfortable and they just tell people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear, over and
over and over and over again. And frankly, part of why I'm doing this is because what I met with President Biden in twenty twenty three for an hour in the Oval Office, and one of the things that that happened to you, well, it was a good meeting, and it was it was after he created the Office of Gun Violence Prevention at the White House that saw about the twenty five percent reduction in gun homicides around the country. Part of the challenge is, though you're not gonna hear
about the shooting. That doesn't have right. But I was meeting with him in that regard.
And did you see the decline in him then?
So that was one of the challenges is I didn't see it personally. And what I wish I had told him though, because he asked me, how do I win back younger voters. What I wish I had told him, which, of course I would have been left out the room if I said this was that he shouldn't run for office again.
I know, but that's what needed to be said.
I was saying that everybody was so mad at me.
And but that's part of the problem is we need to have a more open conversation about these things, because we also created an environment where people felt like they were excommunicated if they dared to say anything about it. And I to some extent, I understand people were afraid about potentially re electing Donald Trump, but ultimately look at where we ended up.
Right.
We need to build a culture inside of our party where we are telling people what they need to hear and not just what they want to hear. That's what I did when I ran for vice chair. When I ran for this position, I said, you know what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to be a politician. I'm not going to contort myself into some bullshit pretzel of whatever you want to see if some bullshit mirage of you know. When they asked me, should Joe Biden
have dropped out? I said, yes, he should have obviously, And then when they asked me why we lost the election, I said, why do we lose the election? Voters told us two things. They said, prices are too high and Joe Biden is too old. And we said to them, with a power of two billion dollars behind us, no he's not, Yes he is. And then we said, no they aren't. Look at the stock market.
And if a majority of people don't have fucking stuff.
Exactly, and if you tell people not to believe their eyeballs or their wallets, you're gonna lose them. And I think what we need to build in the party is a culture of addressing the realities that people are actually going through and what they're actually feeling, not just what a chart is telling us that they should be feeling,
but actually listening to them. And what we're here to do is build that culture, regardless of whether or not people like it or not, because it needs to say if you aren't gonna listen and understand that, frankly, sometimes people should not be in these positions of power anymore because the consequences are if you die in office, we may lose a vote like we just did.
That's going to.
Cost billions and billions of dollars and people to lose their health care because they chose to stay in power for so long that they literally died there. I mean, imagine a scenario like this to your point of what you were talking about, Imagine we had a scenario where we won, you know, a two seat majority in the House, we would have already lost it because several of our members have died in office. That should not be the case.
They need to be. We need to be training up the next generation and passing down that knowledge and not sticking around so long that they're just there forever. And I know that's uncomfortable for some people to hear, and I certainly get a lot of heat for saying that. And it's not to say that there isn't you know that. I don't have respect for those people. They've done incredible
like work and prolific work. But ultimately we have to figure out how do we train up the next generation to build the best democratic party possible because I think what happens is a lot of people don't want to train up their successor because that is a threat to them. Because if you can be if you train up somebody well enough You're going to train them so well that you could potentially be replaced, and that's scary to them. But ultimately, this isn't about you. It's about the country.
It's about the party, and it's about what are we doing not only to defeat Donald Trump? He's look, he's old. I know, Joe Biden's old. Donald Trump is old too. I don't know how much longer he's going to be around. Why do we keep saying defeat Donald Trump? Though he won, right exactly? So that's what I'm getting at is we can't just talk about what are we doing to defeat Donald Trump? What are we doing to defeat him?
He won?
What are we doing to defeat what empowered him? Ultimately, what are we doing to address the fact that right now he's taking millions and millions of dollars into his own cryptocurrency that I think it's very likely that foreign governments are buying to buy favor with him. Right What are we doing to address the fact that his own administration is kidnapping students for op eds that they've written.
That's horrifying. And the fact that right now, despite all of that, that are party's approval rating is that twenty seven percent should tell us it is an indictment of our party. My question to the people that don't agree with this is what is the plan yeah to address that If it's not new leadership. Everybody loves to say it's just new messaging, it's just new messaging. The problem is in DC, the guiding philosophy that guides far too many of our principles is what pisses off the least
people and what raises the most money. That's not a winning strategy, because that's what brought us here.
Congressman Jim Clyburne said that, you know, you know, what do you want them to do? Give up their life and you told them to get over get over themselves?
You what do you mean by that?
What I was getting at more in particular, is first and foremost. I think people like Jim Cliburn are incredibly important figures in our party and have an incredible legacy. What I was getting out was not specific to him. What I was getting out was specific to the culture that we have in the party that I've heard from many members across the board, which is to say, if I leave, I feel like my life is over. And that's why I'm there and I need to be there.
That's not a good enough reason to be in office. Frankly, dude, right completely, and the congressman collaborator, right, of course. But the question should be are you the best representative possible?
And maybe he is.
Ultimately his voters obviously re elected him, so maybe he is. But the question that we need to be facing here is that it ultimately it's not about any single one
of us. It's about this party. It's about what are we doing to make sure that people that rely on food stamps aren't having funding cut like we just saw, What are we doing to make sure that the tens of millions of people that rely on Medicaid aren't having Republicans cut funding from that because several of our members died while in office and that is part of what
enabled them to do that. Because ultimately, we need to be focused on those several million people and the American people more than we need to be focused on ourselves. And I'm not, let me be clear, I'm not saying that that's specific to Congressman clib Do.
You regret saying that, like just that choice of words get over you?
I think think what I wish I was more specific, and in that regard is that we have a culture in our party of saying, like, well, you know, I feel like my life is over if I stay here forever, and that's why I'm here, and that's not a good enough reason of being there. And maybe that's not what he's maybe that's not what he was trying to say. In that case, I agree.
With that, because the American people's life could be over if you stay too long. Clearly a lot of y'all have stayed too long, and you know, y'all have been holding onto those same ideologies, and like you said, that culture of the Democratic Party has not benefited us. The thing that bugs me out the most is twenty twenty. They told us vote for President Biden to stop what
is happening now, and it didn't stop anything. They didn't fight hard at all when they got in the office to stop what is currently going on in this country right now.
It's horrifying.
I mean, there were things that I think that we did do to give them some level of credit. Right We got the first federal gun law passed in thirty years. That's pretty prolific. That's part of what resulted in twenty five percent reduction in gun homicides. It's nowhere near enough to be clear.
But I'm talking of regard to stopping authoritarian rule. Oh yeah, I'm talking about in regard to stopping with somebody, stopping somebody that you know wasn't going to uphold the Constitution. They never acted like, well, they talked like Donald Trump was a threat, but never really acted like yeah.
And I think what we should have done if if we genuinely felt that way, we would have we would have made sure that we were building a culture where we were telling people what they need to hear, including the President of the United States, and not just what they want to hear. And frankly, the fact that I didn't say that in that meeting with President Biden, it is one of the biggest regrets that I have and I will think about almost probably every day for the
rest of my life. Is in those major moments, sure would the President of listened to me? Probably not, and I probably would have just been laughed out of the room, to be honest with you, but at least I would have told him what he needed to hear and not just what he wanted to hear. Ultimately, and that is what we got to change in our party, And what I'll tell you this much is that comfortable politicians don't change.
They don't.
And I think right now there's far too much comfort in our party in a moment of crisis in our country with what we're seeing Donald Trump do across the board, I'm tired of seeing strongly written letters, right.
Strongly written letters with eight strong questions.
What I think we need more of is people that are like Senator Van Holland right, who said, who's a senator from Maryland that said he didn't just sit on his hands and say I'm in the minority, I can't do anything. He said, Donald Trump disappeared one of my constituents to El Salvador, and I'm going to l Salvador to talk to him. That's what it looks like. That's what fighting back it looks like. But it goes beyond
that too as well. It's about an overall cultural shift in our party because right now, I'm curious what you guys think of this. If you ask the average American if the Democratic Party was an animal, guess what the most common answer.
Is A cowardly line. You want to take a guess same cowardly line.
It's a turtle, a smart.
You know what it is for Republicans and it's a shark or alliant. People want somebody who fights for them ultimately, and that is what kills me about what we're saying is we are fighting. I do genuinely believe for the right reasons and for the right people. But for far too many people, they clearly don't feel like we are fighting for them ultimately. They don't feel like we're addressing
their real concerns. And what we need to do is elect people that are there to address those concerns and say, screw the special interests. We're here to represent you. We're
not here to represent corporations. We're not in Congress to help you know, an extremely wealthy group of people, like Republicans are doing right now where they are literally cutting billions of dollars in funding for Medicaid and food stamps in order to give a I think there's a five trillion dollar tax cut to the wealthiest Americans in this country. They are literally taking from the poorest and most vomitable members of our country and giving it to the most
affluent and wealthy people. And Donald Trump likes to call this his big beautiful bill. It should be called the big bullshit bill. That's what that is ultimately, because that's not the art of the deal. That's just total bullshit that he is pushing there.
And I wonder if Democrats understand, like, you know, when Chuck Schumer talks about how bad this bill is but then says he has to support it anyway, do they not understand how that missed messaging makes me not ever believe anything that comes out.
Well, it is awful.
And what I think we need to do is make sure that we're better coordinated between the left and the right hands right where the House and the Senator properly talking to each other. And also if we do have to face a tough decision like that, like that's safe for a second that that Schumer in that position, let's say like he made the best of two bad bads, the least bad of two bads. You know, this is right,
the lesser two weeks. But ultimately, when we're in the minority, unfortunately we don't have the choice of that a lot of the time.
But even when they're in a majority, it's like we're.
Picking and it shouldn't be. To be clear, and I think the way that we do that it was we change our cast of characters to make sure that we are fighting harder and showing that we're going to fight to elect p people that are like our first endorsed candidate, actually Senator Robert Peters in Illinois, who actually currently is in the same Senate seat as Barack Obama was when he was in the state legislature there, and the reason why we had him just as an example of what
we need more of to help make sure that we're pushing our leaders to be better, because leaders are the consequences of the people that vote for them, right, whether that is the American people that are voting for them, or that is the people inside of Congress that are voting for them. Senator Peters in Illinois, what he did that was really remarkable to us is it's not enough
just to have the right values. That is obviously the first and most important thing in terms of fighting to ensure like he did that he's he ended cash bail in the state of Illinois, and they built a system where it's based off of how much of a risk somebody is to society whether or not they get out, not whether or not they can afford to get out.
But on top of that, he also did things like increased tenant protections and made it so that if you have a mental health crisis and you're insurance companies don't love to pay for therapy a lot of the time. So part of what they addressed was prior authorizations for insurance. What we're looking for people with the right values who also gedget had done right. That's what I care about ultimately, And he passed over one hundred and twenty bills through
the legislature and got them signed into law. That is what we're looking for more of in Congress. People that have the experience, that have the grit, that have the determination and the will to get done, and have the lived experience that far too many members of Congress frankly
only pretend to even know about. And he knows that himself because unfortunately, at a younger age, he lost his parents, went through the foster care system, and went on to still become this prolific leader in the Illinois state legislature. And I think part of the reason for that is because he personally knows the consequences of what happens when we don't lead on these issues and that's what we need a lot more of in Congress. But it's not just any young person, to be clear, right, there's lots
of young people who suck. There's lots of old people who are great. It's not as simple as saying if you're above a certain age, you shouldn't necessarily be there.
It's about effectiveness, right, And the issue that I take more breadly speaking with the party right now is that it feels like we've leaned so much on this culture of seniority politics that if you just wait for the most experienced people, that they're going to be the ones to get things done the best, over and over and that's what we said over and over and over again.
But that's what got us here. If that was the best situation for us to lead us out of these moments, I wouldn't be talking to you right now because this wouldn't be a problem, right, because Donald Trump wouldn't have been elected again in the first place. But here we are, and experience matters. But it has to be effective experience ultimately, because if you're just there for thirty years and you don't know how to get things done, that experience doesn't mean anything.
Right.
But if you've been there for three years and you know how to get things done, that's a lot more important to me.
Right.
So we're not just looking to find any young person. We're looking to find the best of the best of our generation to get them elected around the country.
What advice have owed the progressives given you privately that contradicts their public message.
I've heard from a lot of members of Congress that have thanked me for doing this, even not so young members of Congress that have thanked me for doing this and said that this is dramatically needed, but they don't want to speak out about it because they obviously don't want to say that some of their colleagues shouldn't necessarily be there anymore. But look, I'm willing to do that. I don't care.
I didn't.
I didn't get to this position by saying over and over again, Oh, I'm just gonna conserve my political capital, and I'm just going to be extremely risk averse. I know the consequences of what of that type of politics.
My generation knows the consequences of that type of politics of saying, oh, let's just cower ourselves and negotiate against ourselves more and more and more and more and more, to the point that Eddi, it makes us question why the how are we even there in the first place, right, because we're not there just to sit in a comfortable chair.
We're there to get out of it and get things done to show people why they should vote for us, not just because of how that we're the less bad of two options, like you talk about, but that were the best option overall. Right, I'm tired of voting for the least bad of two options. I want to vote for the best option. Ultimately, I've got two more questions.
Would you ever consider helping to start a third party of Democrats continue ignoring your generation's demands.
No, because this is not their party. Ultimately, the people that are trying to you know that are against this. The Democratic Party doesn't belong to anybody in leadership. It doesn't belong to me. It doesn't belong to any of the official members of the DNC, the or the official leaders of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party belongs to the American people and the millions of Democrats that are elected around the country that we are here to try
to represent as much as possible. So no, I'm not about to leave and try to start my own party, because ultimately, this isn't you know, the people that are against this.
This isn't their party.
It's all of our party, and it's a matter of what type of party do we want to build in the first place.
Okay, my last question, I'm just going to throw some names at you, and because because these people to me represent what the next generation of Democrats could look like, I just want to know what your thoughts of them are.
Governor Wesmore and Maryland.
So, I think Governor Wes Moore has done a pretty amazing job. He actually has a really cool program that I don't think has been talked about very much where he works. I think it's called like the mid Career Program, where they'd taken a class of several hundred young people and put them into different jobs around the state of Maryland and it really helps get them started in their lives and their careers and like help turn things around.
And there have even been people that have gone into this program that that I've heard about that started out literally homeless that now have gone on to get jobs and do things like that. So that's great. I love Governor Wes Moore. I will say this much. If yeah, I can't. I can't talk at all about the any potential presidential nominees. I'm not saying that he is or is not running, but I can't give any opinion specifically
on that. I think people boo to Judge clearly was a very good Secretary of Transportation given the situation that we're in right now, and I think I think with Pete he represents a level of sanity that I think people are craving right now. They're tired of the chaos that I think Donald Trump represents a lot of the time. I don't think people want to have a president that they have to hear about doing something ridiculous in the headlines every single day. That is frankly an embarrassment to
our country and internationally as well. So I think Pete could be great. What I really like about him is that, and I'm just talking about like future leaders. I'm not talking about anything about presidential or anything like that. To be extremely that's generation democratics. What I really like about him is I think he does an excellent job of talking to people who don't agree with him.
Yes, I agree, that is what we need more of.
When I was actually in college, I joined the shooting club. As you can imagine, I was very popular there, right, And I didn't do that because I was super popular. I did that because I wanted to talk to the people who disagree with me most. And what I realized from those conversations, at least on the issue of gun violence a lot of the time, is that it's it's not even for a lot of people that there's super overtly against this, even if they say that they're against it.
A lot of the time, when people don't agree with something on this, it's because they feel disrespected by you, they feel unheard, they feel looked down on. And when you have an actual conversation with them and say, okay, why do you feel this way? What can we agree on?
You start making progress with them.
That's why I've talked to people who've said to me even crazy things like people who think that the shooting in my high school didn't happen. Why I've engaged with and said, obviously, I don't agree with you on that because they're conspiracy theorists, right, And it's hard for me to have that conversation, incredibly hard. But I'm not here
to have easy conversations and get nothing done. I'm here to have hard conversations and help fundamentally change this issue so that no other generation has to live through it in the first place. And what I learned from those conversations is when they say an insults me, or they say something like I just mentioned, when I respond and I say, look, I can respect that you don't agree with me, but I can't accept the fact that you don't want school shootings or gun violence to continue either.
So to figure out what we can't agree on, even if it's a small thing. When I do that, at the end of every single conversation that I've had like that, without fail, if they continue talking to me, they end up apologizing and saying I may not agree with you
on everything, but I respect you. And then they'll come back a lot of the time and say, actually, I've changed my mind because of our conversation, and I now support you, and I shouldn't have said that the shooting at your high school didn't happen, and I was wrong for that, and I'm sorry. And that is what the most powerful force to me is is how to turn that hatred into Hope's shoot. No, I didn't now I was one of the best shots on the team because
my dad was an FBI agent. But that's what I think Pete is really good at representing, is helping to kind of bring people together and talk to the people that don't agree and explain without compromising his values what we believe as Democrats, and I think it's really powerful.
Names govern to Josh Shapiro.
You know, I think with Josh Shapiro, he has a huge amount of favorability for a reason in Pennsylvania ultimately, and you know, I think it's interesting as a swing state. They have a pretty close state logist as well, and there's been some great work that they've done on gun violence as well. Javna Crockett Jasmine Crockett, I love her.
She is amazing.
I think that people want to see somebody who fights and calls out the bullshit. Ultimately. I think that's what Jasmine does. And we need a hell of a lot more people that are out there that are willing to do just that and call people out on their ps and not say, oh my god, Republicans are going to criticize me for saying this, screw that, They're going to criticize you no matter what So what we should be asking ourselves is what are we really fighting for? Because
we know it matters. And I think Jasmine is, frankly the type of leader that we're really looking to support in some senses, right, somebody who is out there that frankly doesn't give a damn with the other side. At least the elected Republicans in Congress say that say what they believe in, and at least you know, even if you don't agree with her, you know what she stands for because she makes it very clear. And people are
really craving that right now. They don't want more politicians that say talking points that it doesn't even feel like they believe, or you don't even really know what they mean. They want somebody who's out there that says what they believe and doesn't care what somebody else thinks about it. They want that authenticity.
Govin and Gretchen Wimmer.
I think part of what was really great with Gretchen Wimmer and her focus was on infrastructure right people. I think Democrats need to do a lot more of finding the issues that nobody likes and addressing them in a substantial matter. So part of her campaign was addressing potholes, right, really basic, just saying fix the damn roads.
We need more of that. Right.
I want to make sure that if somebody is out there that when we have democratic cities, for example, that they should be the most efficiently run, safest and clean cities in the world. Ultimately that are the best run possible. And I think part of our strategy for twenty twenty eight and twenty twenty six needs to be talking about, Okay, what are we doing to address the fact that it is incredibly hard for people to pay their rent right
now because rents have gone up so much. What are we doing to address the fact that our roads are terrible in far too many places? Because I think the pathway forward for Democrats is if we're successful. What I want people to think when they hear the word democrat is two things competence and integrity.
Right.
I want them to know that we get things done and that we have the integrity to stand behind what we truly believe in and accomplish it at the end of the day, whether that's making sure that you don't go bankrupt because you want to go to the doctor, or that's making sure that you don't you know, pop a tire on a pothole, or making sure that you can actually afford a home ultimately, because the biggest challenges to those things should not be how it shouldn't be
how expensive it is. Everything is too damn expensive, way too damn expensive. What we got to figure out is how do we address the cost of all those things across the board, because the American dream for those essentials, the things that we don't have options of buying a roof over our head, right, health care, insurance, and things like elder care like for my father, or childcare. Those things are way too damn expensive and guess what Republicans
are not going to fit them. So the question was is Democrats needs to be what are we going to do to fix it? And some of that needs to be making it easier for people to be able to buy a house, but it's also about addressing why are there's so few houses to begin with at the same time, and not treating it as an either or, but addressing the demand side and the supply side of it.
At the same time. Some more names AOC.
How long do you have?
I mean, AOC has been a huge inspiration to me when I because she got elected in twenty eighteen and famously, you know, I also want to mention she challenged a Democrat, Yes, right. Imagine if we didn't have AOC right now going out there and rallying tens of thousands of people. Imagine that, right. And it wasn't just any Democrat that she challenged, it was one of the most powerful Democrats in the House. And frankly, the way that she's been treated simply for
doing that, I find horrible and unacceptable. I think that she should have been the head of oversight, frankly, so that she could have gone out there and spoken out about all this stuff. What I really like about her is more than anything, that you clearly know that she believes what she's saying. Absolutely, she clearly believes what she's saying. And she knows how to communicate on social media because
she grew up with it she's young. And also she doesn't you know, she's not out there taking money from
special interests. You know, regardless of whether or not you agree with AOC, at least you can say that she's not owned by anyone, right, She's not owned by any special interest or anything like that that's finding her campaign because she is saying what she believes in at the end of the day, and I think we need to help a lot more of that, and we need to create a culture where if somebody does successfully challenge, you know, a member like that, that they aren't shut out and
kept out. Because she is a huge asset to our party that I do not believe is being utilized nearly enough. And we need to accept the fact that we're going to have challenges in our own party, sometimes to incumbent Democrats. That's okay, that's healthy. Competition is a healthy thing. Imagine if we just said no, you can't do that, you need to wait your turn over and over again. I don't think that we'd be in a very good place
right now. So I love her. I think she is a prolific lader, and we need a lot more people like her.
My last name.
These are people who I believe are the future and now in the future of the Democratic Party.
John Stuart, John Stewart, John Stuart.
So what I love about John is I think he he and Donald Trump actually have the same greatest strength. And this is going to sound controversial, is that they're funny.
Yeah, right, not controversial.
So I think what's controversial with some Democrats, right, but I think what happens.
They don't have a sense of humor.
Well truly, Yeah, that's a whole nother com Well. I think John Stewart has a sense of certainly. I think what happens a lot of the time with Donald Trump that we don't realize is that people in the America, in our America, we don't think of authoritarians as funny people.
Right.
It's very disarming to people because when we're freaking out and saying, oh my god, he's doing X, Y and Z thing, what a lot of normal people see is, what do you mean he's going and working at a McDonald's as part of like a political stunt, or what do you mean he's going and I don't know, just going and distract, like making all these weird jokes and stuff,
or you know, going on and on about it. And it's very disarming to people, frankly, in a very dangerous way, because he is a dangerous man, very as we're seeing around the country. But I think with John Stewart, what I like about him is the same thing that I like about AOC. He's funny, he says what he believes in, and he gets shited done. And I know that because I saw when they were working on the Packed Actor.
Sorry might get emotion, I'm talking about this. That summer they were Democrats were working on passing the largest expansion of veterans healthcare in American history. And that's in part because of President Biden's lift experience obviously with his son, which was horrifying. Died of cancer, very likely caused by
a burnpit. I got a text from a friend that said, hey, there's some veterans that are out here that are protesting because what happened is Democrats actually out maneuvered, to Chuck Schumer's credit, he out maneuvered Mitch McConnell with the Inflation Reduction Act and Mitch McConnell was pissed about that. So what happened is they said, you know what, we're going to screw over the veterans. So right before they went
on recess, they killed the Packed Act from passing. The Republicans did the largest expansion of veterans healthcare in American history.
And I took this personally.
There are let me count off the top of my head, went, there's at least four Navy pilots in my family that we've had between my aunt, my uncle, my grandpa, and my father, and my dad has Parkinson's very likely caused by being exposed to Judge fuel and other toxic substances in the military. And my friend texted me and said, Hey, there's a group of veterans that are sleeping on the steps of the US Senate right now and they're going to stay out there, pulling all nighters what they called
a firewatch until this bill passes. And I went out there and I was talking to them, and I was so inspired by them because I saw my dad in them, I saw my family members in them that I said, what I'm gonna do is I'm just going to stay out here and I'm going to interview you guys like all night. So I took out my phone and I literally just posted directly to Twitter. I said, tell me
your story and why you're here. And I heard so many heartbreaking stories of veterans who served overseas that then got a rare form of cancer and were denied their benefits that our country failed to serve. That is why they were out there. And one of those people that I met, you know, had worked for the federal government, and now he is facing a very real chance that his retirement is going to be cut by several hundred thousand dollars because of this bill that Republicans are pushing
through right now. And I will never forget when John Stewart showed up to support those veterans and help get that bill passed, and it did get passed. Is one
of the largest expansions ever the veterans' healthcare. Because in the past, you used to say, you used to have to say, oh, you know, this very rare form of cancer that I got, you had to prove that it was because you were exposed to all of these toxic chemicals like agent orange or whatever else it might have been in the military in order to get health care
for that. Why the hell is it on our veterans that have served our country and risk their lives for their country and sacrifice so much to prove to the government that they served that their health care, that their cancer is caused by that. I think it should be on the government to prove why it isn't caused by that, Because if we're willing to spend trillions of dollars on stupid bullshit wars, overseas. We should be willing to spend at least a couple of billion taking care of our
damn veterans that put their ass on the line. For the politicians in DC that are way too comfortable right now, and the fact that Republicans killed that at the last second and we had to shame them in order to pass that is disgusting. But that's part of the reason why I'm a Democrat, because we do stuff like that. We got that bill passed and we massively expanded healthcare for millions of veterans around the country. But what scares me is Republicans are already trying to chip away at
it and erode against it. So Yes, John Stewart is an incredible and prolific figure that I think I wouldn't even say is the future of our party. I would say he is a major part of our party right now.
Yeah, it's my hope.
And I know you can't say this. I want him to be President of the United States of America. I really do. I think that he is such a fantastic, thick messenger, and he actually knows politics, and he cares about people and for the way the country is now and where the country is going. As far as messaging, you need somebody like him front and center that it's my thought, David Hogg, thank you brother. I like the work that you're doing. Man, keep fighting a good fight.
Thank you.
That's right. If they can support you in anyway, what should they do?
People can just check out our website at leaders we Deserve dot com and you can also see on there too as we create more endorsements. Who's out there as well?
Absolutely it is. David Hog is the Breakfast Club, Wake that answer up in the morning. Breakfast Club