The conspiracy theory Trump can't kill

This is a Global Player original podcast. Make some noise if you care about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. R ra raise your hand if it matters a lot to you. Raise your hand. So every hand of seven thousand people. Everybody cares. That's Megan Kelly and Charlie Kirk. two of the luminous stars of Magaland talking about Geoffrey Epstein. That everyone cares, everyone is troubled by the lack of explanation. But one person

is begging to disagree. That person is Donald Trump. He thinks the question of Epstein and the so-called missing files is boring and he wishes everyone would stop asking him about it. What is this doing to Magaland? Welcome to the NewsAgency USA. It's John. It's Emily. And in a moment you're going to hear an interview.

with one of the new progressive democrats, a man who is trying to unseat Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker. His name is Shoukat Chakrabati. He's worked with AOC. He's worked alongside Bernie Sanders. And he believes the old way of doing things is dead.

And the Democratic Party has got to reinvent itself from scratch. But we start with Epstein because this is a problem that is not going away, it is getting worse for Donald Trump. And surely if anyone knows about conspiracy theories, it is the current president. He has been the propagator of so many of them. And the one thing you should know is you cannot kill a conspiracy theory. You can shrink it, you can get people to look the other way.

But just to tell people there's nothing to see here is not going to wash and yet That is still Donald Trump's demeanour when he's asked about it in public. This is him at the foot. Why do you think your supporters in particular have been so interested in the Epstein story? I don't understand it. Uh why they would be so interested. He's dead for a long time. Uh he was never a big

factor in terms of life. Uh I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is. I really don't. And the credible information's been given. Don't forget we went through years of the Muller witch hunt and all of the different different things to steal dossier which was all fake. All that information was fake. But I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff. It's sorted but it's boring. And

And I don't understand why it keeps going. Uh I I think well really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like uh like that going. But credible information, let'em give it. Anything that Yeah, and maybe the first thing you'd say is how deeply offensive that will be to hundreds of Epstein's victims, maybe even thousands, and all their families. When you hear the President of the United States saying it's pretty boring stuff, he's essentially dismissing

A lot of the pain and a lot of the trauma and a lot of the crime that Epstein got up to because he's decided it's no longer worth considering. And I think that is Partly why you hear those voices in the hall of Turning Point that we played at the beginning say this is not good enough. You know, we actually do want to get to the bottom of whatever went on. You cannot just decide that this is over because you've decided that your conspiracy theory has gone.

But I also think that it is creating real ruptures now within parts of the administration. You might have heard our episode last week and be aware that this came about because the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, Shut down the case. Having said previously that there was an Epstein file case. On her desk, ready to go. She then turned round and said, There isn't, there actually isn't a file. There's nothing to see here.

We don't know really what that file would be or whether there was anything or whether there is anything it in existence that suggests a client list as such. But the fact that she shut it down so comprehensively with so little real explanation, and then this week gave a press conference where she refused to let reporters even ask about Epstein, suggest

uncomfortable with this issue. Th this is this today is about fentanyl. This is about a wall of people right outside this room who have died from I appreciate your question, but this today is about fentanyl overdoses throughout our country. and people who have lost loved ones to fentanyl. That's the message that we're here to send today. Nothing about Epstein. It's very hard. to say you're holding a news conference But we're not going to answer reporters' questions.

on the subject that you want to talk about. I mean fair enough. You know, fentanyl is a massive is a massive issue for America and a massive issue for many people in America right now. But it's not a great look as the Attorney General if you literally won't let people off ask the questions. Yes, I mean journalists are not the secretarial pool where could you take dictation, Ms Maitless?

You know, they're not there to write down just what Pam Bondy wants you to write in your notebook. We are there to ask questions and sometimes the subjects will be agreeable to her and sometimes they won't. But again, it's all kind of adding. To this sense of why can't you just be candid about this stuff? And why don't you just tell us what is out there? You're the ones, after all, who've whipped this all up.

into the possibility that there was a conspiracy, that there was blackmail, that there was you know, a murder, that there was all sorts of extortion going on. And now they're saying, No, no, actually uh having said that for years, we now recognise there's nothing. Yeah. And the public aren't buying it. And over the last six months there has been a pattern of I guess I'd broadly call it spinelessness. In other words, legislators, congressmen and women, senators,

Basically adhering to anything that Donald Trump says, anything that he wants, any bill that he wants passed, they essentially come round to his way of thinking. On this issue, not so much.

This is Tim Burchett. He is a congressman from Tennessee. who was going out on a limb to say I'm not having it. I'm big on clarity and transparency and and you know y that's a good reason people don't trust government, either party. But you don't believe what the Justice Department is saying? I don't know. You know, I don't. I don't. I think I don't. I don't

Yeah, I mean the cat's out the bag. Once you tell people that the DOJ is full of crooks, once you tell people there's a deep state, once you tell people there's lawfare or whatever Then people take you at their word and they will run with a conspiracy theory even after you've put it down. And significantly in the past twenty four hours. the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, kind of dutiful, loyal, lap dog

of the president has come out and said, not good enough. We need to see the files such as they are, lay it all out there and let the people decide. And you know, it's kind of Donald Trump is being hoist by one of his own conspiracy theories that he now wants to say doesn't exist. Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? What happens when a conspiracy theory runs away from you and I guess Mike Johnson, who has always been, as you say, the loyal Labrador.

has now got to choose between the MAGA base that wants answers and the president who's saying nothing to see here. And it is laughable, quite frankly, To hear Trump sounding almost mainstream when he says there is no evidence to support the files and without evidence we can't go any further. Sorry? What? The man who had absolutely no evidence. That the twenty twenty election was stolen suddenly needs to have factual evidence in order to take his next step.

I mean it's very interesting that what he is doing by telling people that there's nothing to see here is making people absolutely fascinated by it. Of course. And on the Democrat side there is the I wonder why Donald Trump doesn't want anything to come out.

about Geoffrey Epstein because it was known that Trump knew Epstein. And I remember during the you know, when I was in Washington that a briefing that Trump gave where he was asked about Ghilaine Maxwell, who's the only person who's been convicted. of any of the wrongdoing that went on. And he was very gracious about

He was very n you know, very nice woman, etcetera, etcetera. And so, you know, the danger is that it grows on the other side that it's a Trump cover up, that Trump is covering up his own relationship and of course, you know, Elon Musk.

said what he said. I if I was to counsel Donald Trump when I don't think he's gonna pick up the phone and say, John, what do you think I should do? He should ring up Barack Obama. Because Barack Obama had to deal with Trump's bertharism conspiracy all the time that he was president, where Trump was saying, Oh, Barack Obama was not born in the US, he was born in Kenya

And that went on and it drove the Obama administration and the people around Obama crazy because they couldn't shake off this bloody conspiracy theory. Yeah, but it's too late for that because as you'll hear, Trump has already lashed out As a way of preventing further questions about himself, he was At James Comey, Barack Obama And to Joe Biden. Of course.

The Attorney General briefed you on the on a on a DOJ and F. On what? On what subject? Epstein. On Epstein. Of the review of the files. Attorney General Pam Bonnie. A very very quick briefing. Did she tell you what did she tell you about the review and specifically, did she tell you at all that you're

name appeared in the fi in the no no she's uh she's given us just a very quick briefing and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they've seen and I would say that you know these files were made up by Comey They were made up by Obama, they were made up by but the Biden and for you know uh we and we went through years of that with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, with all of the different things that we had to go through, we've gone through years of it. But she

But she's handled it very well. Handled it very well. So Pam Bondy has given him a very short briefing on what's in the file. You'd think the President would be a little more curious given the blowback that is coming. over the fact that nothing has been released to the public and there's nothing to see here. I'm not sure how well Pam Bondy has handled it or Donald Trump, because frankly if they'd handled it better, it might not be

The story it is now and is still growing. And you just sense that with some things, Donald Trump is brilliant. Look the other way. Look, look, look over there. There's a shiny object. And we all look the other way and we go scampering after it. No one is doing that. They are still persisting with questions, and the questions are intensifying. As you know, Trump is very good.

when there is an external enemy, whether it's Mexico, whether it's an alien invasion of illegal immigrants in his terms, whether it's the Democrats, whether it's Biden, whether it's a Russian hoax, that's fine. He's very good at creating a narrative of they're out to get us, you know, the grievance culture, they're out to get us. This time it's all happening within not just his party, but his administration. So the FBI director, Cash Patel, and his deputy, Dan Bon Gino,

look as if there are odds with the Attorney General Pam Bondi. And at one stage last week there were Hints that Bon Gino might even walk, yeah. Yeah. Give up his job. Give up a job as the second most important person at the FBI. to what? Go back to doing a sort of right wing conspiracy podcast. Not there's anything wrong with podcasts, obviously. But

he didn't like what Pam Bondy said to the extent that he was thinking of walking. Now, that hasn't happened. We don't know if there will be uh resignations over this. I think it's probably unlikely. I'd also say, frankly, that Trump is the Houdini of politics, who manages to get himself out of extraordinary scrapes.

with incredible alacracy most of the time. So I'm sure that he will find a way of pulling the party back together and if something happens in the next few days where we're all being made to look over here You'll know why that is, right? There will be a look over here moment. But as things stand, as we record on Wednesday lunchtime, It feels very fractious what is going on within his actual administration, between people he appointed

not always because they had the best track record of public office, but because they spouted his own conspiracy theories the loudest. Exactly. And Cash Patel and Dan Bon Gino were at the forefront of promoting conspiracy theories about what happened to Jeffrey Epstein in that jail in New York. And so you have a remarkable situation where we have tried to chronicle over the past six months

the sort of turbulence and the extraordinary pace of events in the Trump administration. And we've looked at the crisis over tariffs and the what happens on the bond markets and the uncertainty over that. the bombing of Iran, the failure to bring peace to Ukraine, the continuing war in Gaza and the you know, not making progress there. Yet the biggest crisis That Donald Trump faces is over a bloke who died six years ago. And what did or didn't happen?

Over it, and this is because Donald Trump has been bitten on the backside by his own speciality, conspiracy theories, and inflaming them. And now he's trying to use a fire extinguisher and it ain't working.

In a moment we're gonna hear from the man taking on the old style Democratic Party, Shoika Chakrabati, who's putting himself up against Nancy Pelosi. USA with Emily Maitless. And John Sopor. Well joining us now on the NewsAgency USA is Shoika Chakrabati, somebody who, to be honest, we have been following and listening to and watching for a few months now and trying to get on with the various time different logistics.

And Shoikat, it's great to be able to speak to you finally. Let's give our listeners a a sort of potted history of of sort of where you come into the picture because you are taking on Nancy Pelosi, de former Speaker of the House in California, in her... house seat at the next elections, you were Birdie Sanders Can we call you technology guru on the campaign in twenty sixteen? And Chief of Staff to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, unseating Joe Crowley, who was the person who was expected.

To win. So Shocat, I guess I'm gonna say there is quite a lot of expectation on your shoulders now? Is that fair? Of being a representative voice of what the Democrat Party might look like or might need to look like and sound like in the next year. Does it radically need to change, do you think? I do think it radically needs to change. I mean, that's the whole motivation for my campaign. Because after Trump won in twenty twenty-four.

Uh I was actually sort of hoping that the Democrats would have sort of this come to Jesus moment, you know, where they do some soul searching, uh, start to think about why they didn't just lose to Trump again, but you know, why they're starting to lose sort of their working class base, because a lot of the traditional Democratic base started to move you know, vote for Trump in this last election.

And my view on it is ultimately the current political and economic system in America just hasn't been working for most people for decades. I think for decades now, most people have been working more and more hours to be able to afford less and less stuff. And that's the fundamental thing driving people to vote for kind of sweeping change every chance they get. I think that was why Obama won in 2008.

'Cause he sort of campaigned on bold sweeping change. I think that's why Trump won in twenty sixteen. I even think Biden campaigned on, you know, a whole new economy with build back better. And that was a large reason why he won. And so I think Democrats have really got to understand.

People are, you know, they're open to the kind of change, but they're just sure that business as usual is not cutting it. And so Democrats have to win on that and we have to deliver on that. I was listening to Mark Cuban at the weekend, the businessman Democrat. who says the problem is that the Democratic Party tends to extrapolate and say this will happen if that happens.

MAGA Republicans just say, This is why your life is shit now. Do you agree that part of the problem is the way that Democrats approach the problems is through language, is through the way they communicate. I think the language is downstream from a lack of a real plan or vision. You know, I I think on the MAGA side They have kind of this cohesive story that they've really been saying for a while nationally of uh what their story is for why your life is getting harder. And they say,

Your life is getting harder because immigrants are coming into a country and America spend a lot of time focused on them, focused on other countries, and not enough time focused on you. And, you know, that's the whole premise of kind of this America first movement. And I think the Democrats A don't really have a story of why things are getting worse. And part of that I think stems from the fact that.

Many Democrats don't actually believe that things are getting worse. I think, you know, a lot of Democrats are living in DC. They're living in, you know, top 1% of the population. For them, life isn't getting worse.

And, you know, there's this whole debate in this last election of whether we actually even trust that what people are telling us when they say the economy's getting worse, we're, you know, inflation's too bad, we can't afford things, whether that's even real. You know, is that reality or is that just some feeling that voters are having? So I think first here is I acknowledging that things are actually getting harder for a lot of people.

And then actually coming up with both the story for how do we get here, but how do you get out of it? Right. And MAGA's kind of got their, I'd say, ham fisted solution that's not gonna solve the problem. And you know, that's a benefit for the Democrats because at the end of the day.

life's not gonna get better for a bunch of people after Trump's out of office, you know, in twenty twenty four. So we have to then figure out what's our answer to that gonna be. And I'm really hoping the answer isn't just Trump was bad and so, you know, vote for us. I think the answer's gotta be here's our plan for how to actually make your lives better. The thing that strikes me, watching the debate unfold, is that the Democratic Party establishment

seems more frightened of you than they do of Donald Trump in some ways. The kind of the insurgent element of Bernie Sanders and AOC and now Zora Mamdani and you is oh my god, they're gonna rip down the the the walls of the establishment. Yeah, and unfortunately for them I think unless the walls of the establishment get ripped down, the Democratic Party itself is not going to be able to win. I mean, you look at the polling right now.

Donald Trump's, you know, got low approval ratings. The Democratic Party's worse. You know, people actually don't like the Democratic Party even more than they don't like Donald Trump. But, you know, I've been in the game of trying to push back against the Democratic Party establishment for quite some time. And every single time, you know, after AOC won,

We wanted to try to work with the folks in the Democratic Party. We're trying to tell them, hey, let's come up with a real answer for how to solve these big economic problems. Let's try to modernize the Democratic Party. At that time I remember, you know, the Democratic Party wasn't doing anything on social media, didn't know how to use any of these new messaging tools. You know, as we wanted to work with them.

But the party has such a culture of just, you know, keeping the status quo together, right? It's this seniority culture. It's this cautious culture. It's sort of this like, it's sort of, you know, this defensive crouch. that they've got uh gone into and in the face of MAGA, they're like deer cotton headlights, right? And they're

instead of coming out and actually trying to go on the attack, do something proactive, they're just trying to figure out how to keep this thing they've got going together. Okay. I s I I completely buy the argument about, you know, they are old. And that's not to be a ageist, but you look at, you know, the age of Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer

You know, there's a um and certainly Joe Biden when he was president, there was a feeling that it was a a gerontocracy, it was an old people's retirement home, the Democratic Party. That's true on age. But in terms of their positioning, weren't they in the right place? Because America as a country is Right of centre, probably the most European countries, and what you're offering is a much more European socialist sort of programme.

I'd say what I'm offering, I mean two things. So when you say America's right is center If you ask people, do you think the Democrats are too far left or not far left enough? Of course, you know, if everyone believes they're a moderate. But then if you ask people on the actual issues, if you say, hey, do you think we should have universal health care, universal child care, should the wealthy be taxed more? Should we be banning members of Congress from trading stocks?

You know, should we be getting real big money in politics? Everything I said polls incredibly well. Like not just barely above fifty. It's usually above sixty, seventy, eighty percent. We talk about the corruption issues, Republicans support it, you know, a close to ninety percent of Republicans support stuff like that, right?

And this larger question, there's this um, you know, very well known polster who asked a bunch of questions in the last election. If you ask people, Do you think we've got to get back to stability, or do you think we need to shock to the system to change the current political and economic system? Overwhelmingly people say shocked us is

Right. So I think what people are looking for, I think there is broad based agreement. The centrist position in America is that the current system is not working and we need something that's Not just little reforms and tweaks around the edges. We actually need to completely change our healthcare system because no one believes.

That a few more reforms are suddenly gonna get healthcare costs down, right? And that's just logical. I think that's just rational. People see what the the way things are going. So people, I'd say Americans are pragmatists. and we're realists and the pragmatic solution right now is the stuff right now isn't working.

Now, the thing I'm offering, I actually wouldn't describe it as socialism at all. I would say it's, you know, yes, we need to expand the social safety net, provide basics for people, but beyond that. What I'm really talking about is investing in industry, building up jobs, creating wealth in the country again.

Because if you look at sort of how every modern developed nation got to where we are today, it was often through these phases where we did massive amounts of investment in our economy to build up whole new economies, build up new industries.

And I think that's what we gotta do. We've gotta get the country unstuck from the stagnation that we've been feeling for the last several decades. But that was what Biden thought he was doing. I mean that legislative program Of the first couple of years promised to be exactly what you're talking about, didn't it? You know, re-energizing, green, you know, protectionist.

big employment and I guess if you go back to Obama, like everyone has used the slogan change, including here, you know, Kirstarmer who's been in power for a year and came to power on the promise of change and now, you know, we're reading

reports here saying that ninety percent of people in one survey think that politics politicians can't change anything. So I guess that's the question, isn't it? Is there something fundamental that's broken between leaders and their voters, leaders and democracies. where you either have to be part of a cult Or else you're kind of you know, you've slightly given up on the people in charge

Doing the changing. No, I I think so with Biden You know, with the Inflation Reduction Act, which was this big investment in sort of green technology, green manufacturing, which itself only really happened because the Green New Deal happened and it pushed Biden to respond and call you know, come back with build back better.

It was a step in the right direction, you know. I but I think what happened was he wasn't able to go all the way. I actually think it's a lot like Herbert Hoover at the end of the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover made a lot of steps. He sto he created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. He started doing direct investment in the economy. It just wasn't big enough and it wasn't fast enough.

And then you saw Franklin Delano Roose Roosevelt come in and supercharge that stuff, right? And he actually made it big enough to make a real impact in people's lives. And that's what created Democratic majorities for decades, right? That created the entire New Deal political era in America. So yeah, I think what Biden did was

decent, but he didn't do the institutional or structural reforms necessary to actually build the stuff fast enough. He didn't lead in a way that got the whole country excited about what he was doing. And so people didn't feel the impacts of what he was doing fast enough. You would say if you come to power

You just need to what massively increase the deficit and spend quickly and change people's lives quickly because that's the only way that you will stay in power because people won't otherwise feel a difference.

Change people's lives quickly, yes, but not massively expand the deficit because the type of investment I'm talking about You know, if you look at when countries have done it, when countries have invested in productive industry in America, when we did it, that was a money-making operation, right? When China invests in its EV industries and its solar panel industries, that makes money for China. That makes China richer.

So that's that's the actually a way to get out of our deficit. Like I believe the way I think the national debt is a real problem in America now. I didn't used to think it was, but I think now Trump's really made it a huge issue. And I think the way you can fix the national debt

ultimately is you've got to grow the economy and you've got to increase revenue, which does mean taxing the rich, right? So we've got to increase revenue and we've got to grow the economy. And the only way to grow the economy is you've got to invest in the economy. If you can't invest, you're not going to grow.

So it was so interesting at the last election because if you looked at things objectively and what Kamala Harris was offering in terms of tax credits would help blue collar working class Americans.

that was going to reintroduce big tax cuts for the wealthiest people because there was an aspiration I guess among many people that maybe I wanna be rich one day and I don't want to have large taxes. I just wonder whether Going out and saying we need to tax the rich more is an election winner or an election loser? I think there's a reason why when Trump talked about the big beautiful bill, he never once said, I'm gonna cut taxes on the rich.

He always said, I'm gonna cut taxes on tips and I'm gonna cut taxes on social security. And when I went out and talked to people and I talked to taxi drivers, that's what they heard. They heard Trump's gonna cut my taxes, he's gonna cut taxes on tips, he's gonna cut taxes for for working people. Because right now cutting tax for the rich is politically toxic Everybody wants a tax errift. Everybody realizes that the inequality in this country has gotten to a breaking point.

Right. Now I'm not saying that just calling for taxing the rich is a winning political theory because I don't think anyone believes that's gonna fix the underlying economy. I'm saying we actually have to invest in the economy and grow the economy and give people real jobs and opportunity.

But our inequality is a problem and I I I believe it's actually a winning solution to talk about taxing the wealthiest. It polls incredibly well. There are people looking at the Mamdani uh victory in the primary for New York Mayor.

who say the trouble is he's kinda promising the world now. He's learnt from the populist playbook where you just say things will happen and people will vote for things even if they don't get delivered. And I guess You know, the thing we know about Trump, and maybe it goes back to Roy Cohn, you know, his advisor for so long, is if you keep saying things even if they're not true, if you keep repeating them, even if they're not true, then that gives you electoral capital.

Do you think populists on the left have to be willing to do that? I think populists on the left do actually need to deliver, right? I do think it we need to deliver. I think part of calling for aspirational stuff is That is the way to get something moderate, right? Like I don't think we would have gotten the Inflation Reduction Act if we weren't calling for the Green New Deal. Because at the time that we call for a Green New Deal,

Democrats were not even interested in any sort of investment in climate change. They were talking about reducing emissions by eighty percent by twenty fifty by doing a few small carbon taxes. That's the only conversation that we were having, right? In Mom Dani's case,

Some of the stuff he's talking about, I think he can deliver, right? He can do the rent free thing. But he's not really gonna run shops. He's not gonna run grocery shops in New York, right? That's actually one of the few things he could deliver on if he really wanted to.

I think I'm more worried about things like universal childcare, which will require a tax increase at the state level. I know this is getting a little local, but that you know, that's something that's gonna be harder. But I believe At the end of the day, the theory of change, you know, I'd say on the populist side.

Is the way you get political capital is by doing popular things, getting people on your side, and then using that to pressure other politicians to do more popular things, right? Which is very different from the establishment theory of change. The establishment theory of change.

is you have this fixed set of political capital you come in with and every time you do something it reduces. So you do as little as possible. So I actually think it's kind of smart for him to have picked a few things that he can deliver on, which include freezing the rent on rent stabilized units. And the the public grocery stores.

And then picking a few things that he can use the political capital to pressure someone like Kathy Hokel, who's a governor in New York, to raise taxes to be able to deliver on universal childcare. Cause that's the thing actually that he's campaigning on that's the most popular. That's the thing that pulls the best. What do you feel about dethroning Pelosi? In the sense that she has been this extraordinary figure kind of

some people say the best speaker of the house. She was the person who I think probably played a decisive role in persuading Biden it was time to leave the political stage. And here you are and I'm sure people are saying, What who is this upstart trying to dethrone one of our most revered figures in the Democratic Party. Yeah, I've got a lot of respect for Speaker Pelosi and I do think she's done a lot of good over the last forty years or so that she's been in office.

But uh, you know, I do think she came into office at a time when we had a Republican party that still believed in elections, you know, still believed in climate change, right? And I think she still believes That that Republican Party is there somewhere. You know, they're gonna come around any day now. And that's her skill, right? Her skill is doing sort of these bipartisan deals with a sane Republican Party. And I'd say largely keeping the caucus together.

The problem is I think we're in a place in American politics where that's completely changed. I think the Republican Party we have today is frankly completely nuts. But also I think we're entering this era where we actually need new ideas for how to solve these real problems that people are having. And I don't think new ideas and a new movement and a new coalition, that's not gonna come from Nancy Pelosi. She's really a keeper of the old guard and a keeper of the status quo.

Right. And I sort of saw this in practice when I when I was chief of staff for AOC, whenever we were trying to push new things, you know, things like the Green New Deal, her instinct was to try to tamp that down, right? And keep it keep it from going anywhere. And I just think that's different. I think this is really critical right now because I do think we're at a point where we're gonna define what the next twenty, thirty, forty years of American politics could be.

Right. I think we had sort of the New Deal era from FDR to Reagan. We had the Reagan era from, you know, his time to I'd say about the Great Recession. And since then, people keep saying this era is not working. You know, this is not delivering the benefits that we believe the American dream should be delivering.

and they keep voting for change. And I don't want this new era to be the MAGA Trump era where, you know, even Democrats are gonna have to govern in that sort of frame. I believe we've got to pitch what the new era's gotta be on Democratic side. And I've been very clear.

That's not gonna come from just me defeating Nancy Pelosi. I'm trying to recruit people to run all across the country. I think we need a whole new generation of leaders to completely redefine who the Democratic Party is and what they stand for and who they stand for. Is mainstream politics dead?

Um mainstream democratic politics, I believe, is dead. I think the es establishment and the current Democratic Party, they're trying to hold on, but I don't think they know where to go or who to stand for or what to stand for. And that's not gonna cut it. Got a final question I guess for you, which is that there you are looking for your seat in San Francisco. You were AOC's chief of staff, she represented New York. You worked for Bernie Saunders who was a bit further up the East Coast.

You're very coastal. Do you speak to Middle America as well or is this something for the East Coast and the West Coast? Well, the fascinating thing about a lot of what I'm running on, which is reindustrializing the rest of the country, building up uh high wage industries.

that actually plays better in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin in the middle of the country. I grew up in Texas, you know, I I moved to San Francisco in two thousand nine and I've been living here for a long time.

But I've spent a lot of my time talking to people in Texas. I lived in Tennessee for a long time and I've spent a lot of time in, I'd say, the middle part of the country, right? And that's why I guess I'm running on the kinds of things I'm running on because ultimately I don't think I just can't stand having a country where half the country

Is fighting another half of the country, right? That's kind of the politics we have. It's hugely polarized. My sort of motivation this entire time has been, I want to make life better for everybody. I want to unify the country. And I kind of think you do need people who have a little bit of experience in both parts of the country to do that. You've worked in tech. Uh you've made your millions in tech. I don't know if you'd call yourself a tech bro, but I'm curious to know what your

What your sense was when you saw the inauguration and you saw people that I don't know, I'm guessing you've looked up to and you've respected and you've admired for their sort of work in the industry, all flanking Donald Trump? I mean, do you think that's That was just inevitable? Um, I think it was disgusting, you know, and I I think is just craven cowardice from I'd say honestly a handful of tech CEOs, because I don't think it's a tech industry at large.

And I talk to tech workers every day in this campaign who are just embarrassed by it. Right. And it's actually motivating a lot of tech workers to get involved in politics to try to prove that those, you know few people that are standing up there with Donald Trump. they don't represent the vast majority of people working in tech who do want to do something good for the country. But yeah, I think it's it's awful, you know, and I and I think it was I think it's just um

you know, political opportunism from from these folks trying to get something for their businesses or for their crypto holdings. Shokit Chakrabadi. Great to have you on. Thank you so much for giving us your time today. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. We're gonna kick some of that around Mm. USA with Emily Maitless. And John Sopor. He's very persuasive. And

I did go away after that interview, sort of thinking quite long and hard about whether he was right that, you know, the Democratic Party as was was dead and they've got to adopt a new way of doing things. And I guess

He's from the progressive wing, he's seen the success of Alexandrio Cassio Cortez and you know, actually to some extent Bernie Sanders and said this is the new way. I guess the other way of looking at it is You know, to put it back in the context of what happened in twenty twenty-four, which was that Kamala Harris, who had only a hundred and seven days to try and win an election, that, you know, had had Joe Biden at its helm, Actually lost by the smallest percentage mark.

Since Bush beat Gore in two thousand. In other words, the popular vote she lost by one point five percent. And there is a danger, I think, that the Democrats decide to tear everything up. They slag off Kamala Harris, they tell us that Biden's health was a cover up. They talk about the fact that they're out of touch and they've lost the working class and they, you know, can't ever recover from things again. Maybe that's true.

Or maybe they are in danger of kind of doubling down on a mistake when actually the margin of their defeat was actually almost miraculous given what what they were putting forward. I think the biggest mistake for the Democratic Party right now would be to think all we need is one more heave. The pendulum will swing back. It's the nature of our politics. We don't have to do very much. There was nothing very much wrong. There was an awful lot that was wrong.

And I think So you are saying tear everything up? No, I'm not saying tear everything up. I think you've got to be cognizant of where public opinion is and how much the American people will accept and how you're gonna frame the arguments, all those things. But I am now of the view I've always thought that the you know, where the establishment Democrats were was broadly the right place. You know, the centre, centre right, which is where the Democratic Party has been, you know, a free market party.

But with, you know, the backing of Wall Street and the backing of industry and all the rest of it. You think that's still right, do you? No, I had done. And I'm now thinking and I'm now thinking that actually, you know, the sort of I mean, the charisma, the youth the populist way of framing it is going to appeal to more people.

I think it's an uphill struggle. But we've had the one more heave. You know, Kamala Harris was continuity Joe Biden. I agree. I think that the Democratic Party will never again mention Wall Street. And we'll never actually want to sort of be in the room with Goldman Sachs in a very sort of visible way. But I think you put your finger on it when It actually probably maybe it was always this. It just comes down to charisma.

It's to do with somebody that you want to listen to versus somebody who you know, as Joe Biden said, I want to be in the background. Boy was he in the background, right? You do not turn the sound up. And maybe he thought that that was a relief after four years of Trump, and maybe to marry Americans it was. And don't forget that Biden's win in 2020, the turnout was extraordinarily high. and his win over Trump was massive, was like six point five percent. So

There is, I mean, to some degree he was the answer to Trump then. And I don't think you can take that away. But I do think that we are All of us as voters. Just l looking f who is the person you want to listen to? But where I think that Chakrapati is absolutely on the money it's just saying The magra is not gonna just go away. You can't just wish it away and say, Close my eyes and in three years' time when it's the twenty twenty eight election

It will all be gone. But will anyone do it like Trump does? I mean, will Vance do it like Trump does? I don't think so. Will Pete Heskith do it like Trump does? I don't think so. Will will Don Junior come in? I don't think so. But you've got to offer something that is going to get Democrats to vote again because you have seen the declining numbers of the working class, the declining numbers of Hispanics, the declining number of black people. Yet still a majority.

But you know, they have started to lose support in key groups. And if you're gonna win that back, you've gotta have something to offer. Yeah. And maybe another eighty year old is not the way to go. And we shall see you next week. Bye bye. Bye for now.