11/9/26: AIPAC In Freefall After Midterm Losses, Summer Lee On Jeffries and Dem Future

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Great to see you guys. - Good to see you, thanks for having us. - Yeah, of course. - So, first wanted to get you guys's reaction to Abdul Al-Sahed, Senator Elect from Michigan on Morning Joe, talking about Israel's genocide in Gaza, let's take a listen. - I'm committed to the safety of Jewish children, like I'm committed to safety of my own children. I think a lot of the issue was more about the government of Israel and our posture towards that government. But I wanna ask us this. We spend billions of dollars subsidizing a foreign government unconditionally, buying bombs and tanks that have been used to do genocide and apartheid and make war we have no business fighting. And we're told that if you wanna stand up against the murder of innocent Palestinian children that that's somehow about hate for anybody. It's not about hate for anybody. It's about equal love for those Palestinian children as you would have for a Jewish child going up in the Holy Land. And my approach to foreign policy is simple. We should be the first among equals to uphold international law. But we have brand rough shot over the notion of what was done to Gaza as if that's not the central question. But like, we're not that far, I mean, it's still ongoing. You're still talking about apartheid policy in the West Bank. You're still talking about the ongoing disruption of access to basic resources in Gaza. You're still talking about a genocide, but nobody wants to say that. So if I stand up and say, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't be sending our money to do the worst things to other people." People are like, "Well, it must be because you hate the people who are doing the worst things." I'm like, "That's insane." That's actually not Trump talking about cutting off aid. By January. I agree with him on that. I don't think that we should be continuing to subsidize a foreign military that has done the worst things with our money. I agree. I'd love to work with him on doing that. And of course, it's not just Abdul Ali Khanput, D2 up on the screen, which lists all of the 30 different wins that APAC tracker had here, including Abdul, but many more in the House in particular. Cory, let me start with you. What does it mean to have this perspective now represented both in the U.S. House and in the Senate? Could you have imagined six months ago that conversation happening on cable news at all? No. It's just, it's incredible. And it's a testament to the steadfastness of the character of Abdul Al-Sayed for all that he has withstood and the numerous times that he has been forced to defend himself against rampant Islamophobia, that he still was able to go in and have such a clear perspective on that. I think it's brilliant. And it's, it's, it pretends well what's going to happen on the Senate floor. One of the questions that I had actually for you guys, especially you, Casey, is what is it like now in an environment of what has happened with APAC that now is actually going to stop directly endorsing? Let's put D3 up here on the screen. Because this was, in my opinion, one of the biggest shock stories of the entire midterms, where they say that they will no longer endorse and directly give to candidates, probably to circumvent the tracking account that you guys have created. Could you just talk a little bit about the legacy of what that means? And honestly, what an extraordinary win. It is for the two of you, founded this Twitter account. You know, it's now basically taken down this multi-billion dollar multi-decade long political project in Washington. Yeah, thank you. So you're absolutely right that this is a shift. It's not them going away before APAC started spending with their PAC and their UDP super PAC. They were relying on direct lobbying of members of Congress and they would utilize the ecosystem of other pro-Israel PACs to weigh into the electoral space. So what we're seeing now is kind of them retreating back to their old tried and true method. They're going to kind of go back into the shadows, try to mask their funding. Like you said, by not moving money directly through the APAC PAC trying to avoid that label so that groups like us aren't able to, as easily ascribed, the APAC label to their candidates. Going forward, we have our methods that we're going to continue utilizing to track this money, to track all the other groups that they're utilizing, these pass-through organizations they partner with, the Shell PACs, that they're popping up. So there's still a lot of work to be done. We see this as kind of the end of phase one. We've knocked them back at level. But now there's a lot more work to do to continue tracking the money, because it's still going to keep flowing. - Let me go to you on this. Let's put D1 up on the screen. So these are the numbers of APAC spending and their win-loss ratios. So this was tracked by responsible statecraft. They say a striking stat regarding APAC reforms in the midterms in 2022, almost 70% of their funds went to races where they won. In 2024, 87% of their funds went into victorious races. In 2026, that figure is just 34%. And no one will be surprised to learn that their biggest target, dollars wise, was the man you see on your screen there, Abdul El-Sahid. How much does his victory query in particular matter? Because it seemed that they went all in against him, and that they really wanted to make an example of him and make him pay for having a pro-humanity view against genocide. - Well, so they clearly recognized that Michigan was the place where they had to make their last stand in order to be able to prove that their concept would continue to work, and that obviously failed. We set out this cycle to put as many candidates on the field as possible to have as many candidates out there defending these ideas and promoting these values as we possibly could. And part of that strategy was not only to propagate these ideas as far as we could get them to go, but also to force APAC to spend more money in more places and to defend more turf than they were expecting to defend. And I think that we see very clearly the fact that they had to scatter their resources, that they had to spend in races that they weren't expecting to and that they had to spend more than they were planning to spend in some races. - I think that that strategy was clearly very successful. So I think that it's a win for the movement overall, for sure, and we set out to make them waste their money and I think we succeeded in doing that. - Oh, yeah, it definitely did. You know, Casey, I want you to talk a little bit more about phase two, so Democrats are in power now. Now what, you know, what are you guys, are you guys going to focus in more on the intra-democratic party on everyone really? And what are some of the demands and the, you know, policy things that you guys want? So you succeeded in branding them as pro-APAC, you've tracked their donations, but what are the asks that you have for these candidates? And what are you gonna do to enforce those asks? - Yeah, for sure. So we're really excited in the next Congress. We're gonna have at least 33 members of our track APAC caucus. We expect to have a few more new members sign on to our pledge hopefully, so that caucus will continue to grow. And basically what we're asking of these members of Congress is to enforce existing US and international law to stop arms transfers to Israel, both defensive and offensive, to stand against censoring free speech. So not in, not codifying the IHRA definition of anti-semitism, which conflates legitimate anti-semitism with criticism of Israel, protecting the right to boycott. So protecting BDS. And just ensuring that we're applying the rights to protect human rights across the board. We're gonna have kind of a block that we haven't seen before. I think you're gonna have a much more vocal pro-Ps and anti-war block in Congress that our members are gonna be making up. And it's time now to really push for a new path and foreign policy to get out of this status quo forever war. or that we've all become so used to. - Cory, how much are you guys gonna focus on the leadership fights? Hakeem Jeffries is one of the top recipients of APEC funds, Chuck Schumer, very much friend to APEC. Neither one of them could even bring themselves to endorse Zora and Mamdani after he was the Democratic nominee. Hakeem Jeffries did so just days before the elections or drag kicking and screaming to it. So how central do you think how much does it matter who the leaders are going to be of the Democratic caucus and the House and the Senate? - Well, I think it absolutely matters a great deal and we are definitely getting involved in the fight for new leadership for this new income in Congress. The voters delivered a clear and commanding mandate not only in the way that they showed up, but in the kinds of candidates that they supported. There are so many candidates that were elected this cycle. Even some were being critical of Israel who have rejected APEC even more than among those that we endorsed. And this is an untold story. We're still kind of crunching the numbers, but a lot of our candidates that we did endorse in these so-called long shot races actually came within one to two points of winning. So the voters have spoken very clearly about what kinds of values they want to see represented. And we've been saying it for over a year now that leadership is completely out of step with the completely out of step with the rest of the bucket about where we should be on these issues. And the bottom line is we're not going to support anybody for leadership that has a red card from us. Like how could we? That's the most basic test of where your priorities lie. - Yeah, and Casey, one thing that I have taken note of is even some of the candidates who maybe weren't backed by you maybe aren't on board with the entire checklist, which of course they should be. But sort of across the board, when you asked candidates even in very red seats, what do you think about this? They said, oh, we've got to stop, you know, shipping these weapons to Israel. Our tax dollars shouldn't be going to this. It really has transcended a sort of like progressive centrist, moderate, label. And I also think that that is very different because previously opposition to funding Israel would have been only found with the like most progressive members of the party. I just don't think that that is true anymore because to your point, this is the majority sentiment of the population is certainly the overwhelming majority sentiment of the Democratic Party. - Yeah, that's exactly right. And especially, you know, we look at Abdul Assad's right setting as an example, they dropped everything they had on him and they still couldn't stop him because he stayed on message. And he stayed, you know, speaking to the issues that people really care about, this war, these endless wars are not popular, dropping bombs on babies is not popular and people have really woken up to that over the last several years. So you see these other candidates who have kind of been written off by the establishment and they are out in the trenches in these deep red districts speaking against the war, speaking against genocide and people are catching onto that and seeing that, you know, there's their candidates out there who do speak for us, who do align with our values, even in these districts that have been longer in office. So we're looking at candidates like Victoria Broderick down in Tennessee, who just won her district and that was a huge surprise. So we're looking to get in touch with her and other folks like her who have kind of snuck through in this wave election and get them aligned with the Track A Pat Caucus. - Yeah, absolutely. - All right, last question. I know it's early, but you know, obviously, 2028 here we come, literally the primaries already here. What are your guys plans for the Democratic primaries? How will you be, you know, are you gonna be doing the same graphics, tracking the same types of demands and others as we gear up for that cycle? - Well, it's not that early. I mean, I don't know if you saw the news, but just, look, I guess about an hour ago, the first primary challenger to John Federman has already announced and so we're very excited about that. Look, the 2028 race has already begun. We already know who's running for president. We know and we've been saying for over a year that this issue is going to be the defining issue of the presidential race and we intend to have a significant role in setting the parameters for how that issue is discussed. - Well, congratulations guys. - Yeah. - Genuinely, it's so impressive. - It's so impressive. - It's really extraordinary. And now it's, yeah, I watched Scott Collomb in that video where he's talking to mega voters outside of rally and one of them's like, "Hey, you take an A-pack money." He's like, "Absolutely not." So even Mississippi mega voters have gotten the message on this. Thank you guys both so much. Great to see you. - Wonderful. - Thank you. - Thank you. - The first thing I hate about Ulysses is they never actually tell the Turks. I'm Dave and I've been an (beep) for my life. - In October, 2021, my brother, David, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This podcast. We didn't know what we were doing, so we just started recording. We discussed cancer. - Since the radiation I lost about 10 more pounds. - We fought. - Yeah, pisses me off. - And we talked openly about the fact that David was going to die. - I am afraid of being forgotten. - My brother, David, is the story of the last chapter of my brother's life. It's weird and messy and vulnerable. And I'm gonna share all of it with you. - It's a constant back and forth battle about how do I not just be alive, but I should live. - Listen to my brother, David, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - But more than a century, miss America's out the country of fantasy. - Well, are you ready, ladies? Okay, here we go. - But over the past decade, the crown's been slipping. They said, goodbye to swimsuits. Now, hello to lawsuits. - I'm Bridget Armstrong. Last season, we took you inside the world of America's next top model. Now I'm back with season two of this podcast, Curse of Miss America. Investigating the rise, fall, and uncertain future of one of America's most iconic institutions. The Miss America pageant. - I never received a scholarship. I need to pay for my student loans. - He looks and he goes, "You don't look like you suffered in the eating disorder." - It's great, but looks too ethnic. - It's a story the Miss America organization really doesn't want us to tell. - An exploitation of our Miss America's is treated by the Miss America organization as an attack on Miss America itself. - Listen to the Curse of Miss America on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. - There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get worse with Kyle Prue is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptide, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your better, getting closer, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. 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You only need one thing, and that's the get worse podcast. - Listen to get worse with Kyle Pru on the IHR Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - All right, for more on what just happened, and what is about to happen next, we are very fortunate to be joined in studio this morning by Representative Summary Lee. Welcome back, great to see you. - It's good to be back. - Yeah, of course, so congratulations on your victory, although it's not much in doubt. - I think it was like a year ago, literally. - That's right, 'cause I think, yeah, that sounds about right. So what are the lessons that, what do you think just happened? - I think a lot just happened, and you know it's so funny, because I think everybody's going to try to take whatever lesson helps them the most, or whatever lesson makes them feel good. But honestly, I actually think there are a lot of lessons, and sometimes I think it's not. I think the biggest lesson is that people are upset with the way the things are. And I think that that is a continuing lesson that we've been seeing from many cycles, right? From the right people who are like, we don't like the way this goes, and that's how we get MAGA. From the center to the left, people who are like, these institutions are not working, things are getting worse for us. And yeah, I absolutely think that people are disgusted by what the Republican Trump traffic have done. I absolutely think that. So yeah, I think people want change. I think people want to feel like they have a little bit more power to start to shake the direction the country is going in, and are trying to figure out what that might look like for them right now. - Do you see this as more a rejection of MAGA and Trump or an affirmative yes to the message that Democrats were running on? - I think for some people to be a combination. I think that for the majority of people is absolutely a rejection of MAGA. It's a rejection of their Medicaid being cut, their gas prices going up. Of these endless wars that people are sick of, of genocides, I think it's all of that. I think that for some people, they're also hearing from their individual candidates and politicians or elected officials. who do have an affirmative vision, because the idea that no one in the Democratic Party has an affirmative vision is also not true. So there are people who are hearing from folks who say, yeah, we do still believe that you should have health care at a wealthy as nation on earth, who do still believe that how is it that every child doesn't have a quality education irrespective of their zip code or that we can't end these wars and prioritize the things that people actually need and deserve here in our own country. People are listening for that, and they did hear that. And I think that that galvanized a lot of people who would otherwise have maybe stayed home. - Yeah, you know, one thing that I took note of, actually even before the election, is while there's certainly like a diversity of ideologies that were just victorious on the Democratic side. But if you listen to the language, a lot of it comes straight out of Zoron's mayoral campaign, a language about affordability, easily focusing on cost of living, and comes out of Bernie's 2016 campaign, talking naming the villains, saying, we're gonna fight against the billionaires. I wonder what you make of that development in the Democratic Party, because when Bernie was saying that stuff in 2016, it's like, oh, you can't do that. - And it's a bit clear. Bernie wasn't the first person to say those things either. When we think about just the tradition of social justice fighters, people who have been in the struggle for all types of different, the intersection of our liberation struggles, people who have been saying these things for quite some time. In every generation, we were destined to get closer to it. - Hopefully. - But the thing that I make of it, and actually this is the part of the conversation that I think is pissing me off the most. - Okay, tell me. - No, because I expected people from people who are less inclined to a like or agree with, or who have agreed with the villainization of progressives, who are trying to find a way to put people into a box. And I think that a lot of us know that our voters don't necessarily align themselves on this left-right binary. That's why you're getting people in deep red districts now who are talking about data centers in AI, they're talking about healthcare, they're talking about ins and wars, they're talking about so many of the things that progressives have been saying forever. And they're still trying to draw the conclusion that while progressivism didn't win. Well, that's not true, because progressivism plays the long game. Progressivism gets their first, and then we build from there. And this cycle, I think, has absolutely shown us, that people actually do want bold change. People are putting it in their own words, that makes sense to their own districts, but the underlying thing is the same thing, that people want a government that meets their needs, they don't want excuses for why we can't do big things anymore, and we don't believe that we have to just settle for next to nothing. And every candidate, most of the candidates, who ran this cycle, absolutely ran on those principles, absolutely ran on the blueprint that was created, and other cycles that maybe didn't make it over to finish line then, but still chugged and kept chugging. And now this is the culmination of that. - So let me put E3 up on the screen. This is from Senator Sanders talking about some of the things he would like to see done. Of course, he's pushing in that direction, okay, how do we build towards Medicare for all? He says as an immediate first step, the new Democratic Congress must lower the Medicare eligibility age to 55, cover all kids, and expand Medicare for dental vision and hearing. All of this can be passed with 51 votes in the Senate through reconciliation. So what do you think of that idea specifically? And what do you think is the mandate that voters have handed to the Democratic Party? - Well, so I'm happy to hear that he thinks that the Senate's going to do something. I think that that is and has been the biggest impediment to change within our government, is that things would pass through the House and then they would go and die in the Senate. And yes, we have an obligation to put forth the boldest possible proposals that we can get through and still hope that the Senate actually moves on it. So I believe that there are so many new senators who are coming here with a little bit of a fire, a lot a bit of a fire, who I hope will be doing that organizing work, but it will take that. It will absolutely take organizing. It will take a lot of work on our end to even get that there. But yes, I think that the mandate from voters is changed. The mandate is do the thing. It is do it boldly. It is stand for something. I think that the era of politicians being able are thinking that they can come to any governing body. It's not just Congress, right? State House is Congress. That you believe that you can get there and you can just get in and fit in and be comfortable and be, you know, and kind of go under the radar. I think those days are over. Yeah. People want to know what you believe. They want to know that you're fighting for what you believe. And they want to know how they can plug in to helping to make that a reality. Yeah, the way I would put it is, I think in the past, the sense has been that it was risky to do, you know, it was risky to make some change. It was risky to push forward bold policy. And now to me, the risk is on the side of not doing. To be clear, I do think it's risky to do. Of course, it's risky to do. But what we have to understand is that there are some risks that are worth taking and there are some risks that are worth figuring out different ways around. You know, both of those things can be true. I think about in my own county and Allegheny County, we pass the first of his nation county-wide paid parental leave policy just a couple weeks ago. Wow. So it took risk, right? It was not an easy thing to do. There was a chorus of people whose interests we do care about, who were saying, don't do this, maybe don't do this, maybe it'll hurt us. And then there was a chorus of other people, parents, moms, and dads, and children, and folks who had been impacted by their inability to take a break. We're looking at the black maternal crisis and we're trying to also explain or justify why we can't give you a couple of days off, a couple weeks off. And we still push through. And our county pushed through and our organizers, our organizers pushed through and they did it. And what they did in doing that is proved that government absolutely can't meet your needs. It doesn't mean it's gonna be easy. It doesn't mean that there won't be consequences for it. But it does mean that we should at least try. And I think that Congress needs to take that lesson, that when we have done improving that we will will, the power that we have, the more people will feel that this is a system worth investing in. I don't mean the system as is. I mean, they will believe that this system is worth fixing, making it look better, making it reflect us more. But people who are told that nothing can work. We can do nothing. I have learned, have been conditioned to stay home. Because what does it matter? - Yeah, that's so true. All right, let me put E1 up on the screen here. And we can talk a little bit about potential leadership. So there's a petition that has been going around that has a million signatures now that says, let's have someone other than Akim Jeffries be house speaker. Jeffries has been very, you know, he's backed by a lot of corporate interests. He's got a lot of A-PAC money that he's received. He's been very adversarial to the progress of weighing in the party. Including refusing to endorse Zoraan Mamdani until days before the election, even after he had been the Democratic nominee. That's what E2 up on the screen apparently, a lot of voters are making their voices heard, house Democrats being inundated with calls, saying, please anyone other than Akim Jeffries for speaker, they say 300 to 500 calls a day. There was an update saying now it's more like 800 calls a day. How many calls are you getting per day? And are you yes or no on Jeffries this speaker? Yeah, I don't know the exact number of calls that we've gotten, but we've gotten them. People are calling, people care. They want to, they are hearing about this, the speaker race, and they want people to know that we want to be a part of the decision. We want to be a part of the momentum that moves us forward. And there are very real concerns. I don't think that there's a real answer that if you're a yes or a no, because it's not a yes or no vote, right? When we go and we vote on January 3rd, it won't be an up or down vote. It will be, you will go onto the house floor, and they will call your name, and you have to give a name. So I think that the bigger question is, is what will we do between now, today, and January 3rd, to create better conditions for progressive values, progressive policies, and progressive members, to be able to participate, to be successful, and to be effective. And I think my biggest concern to think that I really want to dress right now, is that we have not had a democratic, we are falling farther away from democratic processes in our caucus. When I came in November of 2022 to orientation, it was already decided who the top leaders would be. There wasn't a vote, and then there wasn't a vote. And then now we're at the third cycle where no one is running. So the better question is, and I will tell you my truth, is that I don't intend to vote for anybody who will not put their name forward. So we need to have a conversation about what we actually want. We need to have a conversation about how we are going to better reflect with the millions of voters who definitely align more with us, I believe. Then they align with whatever they're arguing right now. And how they are going to make sure that those values, that those that agenda gets put forth and gets voted on. First thing I hate about Ulysses is they never actually tell the Turks, I'm Dave, and I've been a (beep) for my life. (laughing) In October, 2021, my brother David was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This podcast. Okay, so here we go. We discussed cancer. Since the radiation had lost about 10 more pounds. We fought. Yeah, this is me off. And we talked openly about the fact that David was going to die. I am afraid of being forgotten. My brother David is the story of the last chapter of my brother's life. The constant back and forth battle about how do I, how do I not just be alive, but I should live. Listen to my brother David on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more than a century, Miss America sold the country of fantasy. "Well, are you ready, ladies?" "Okay, here we go." But over the past decade, the crown's been slipping. "They said, 'Goodbye to swimsuits, now, hello to lawsuits.'" I'm Bridget Armstrong. Now, I'm back with season two of this podcast, Curse of Miss America, investigating the rise, fall, and uncertain future of one of America's most iconic institutions. The Miss America Patent. "I never received scholarship, I need to pay for my student loans." "You know, looks at me and goes, 'You don't look like you suffered in the eating disorder.'" "It's great, but looks too ethnic." It's a story the Miss America organization really doesn't want us to tell. An exploitation of our Miss America is treated by the Miss America organization as an attack on Miss America itself. Listen to the Curse of Miss America on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Curse with Kyle Pru is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptide, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your better getting closer, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. But if you're interested in blackmail, love, bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something, something, for a dastardly individual like you. Fake a back injury, get the spray tan, up your alcohol consumption. Kill them. Kill them. Kill the gun. Listen, it's already over. The next time a bear is running at you, you just calmly stop what you're doing, you look the bear in the eye, and you say this isn't you. Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. Listen to get worse with Kyle Pru on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. It sounds like you're like a maybe for Jeffries, but you would need an alternative if you were going to vote for someone other than Jeff. Well, everybody's going to need an alternative. They're going to vote for somebody else, because then we're just having a different conversation. Right. And I think it's important to actually talk through what conversation we're having. Is it that we don't want a particular individual or that we do want a thing? Well, let me say what my view is personal, and I will, you know, I think this is reflective of a lot of people is, you know, the democratic base, and really this isn't even a democratic base thing. This is like a nationwide mandate sort of thing. They want a different relationship on Israel. They want to stand up to corporate interests, and they want to fight back against the tech oligarchs. Jeffries has been adversarial on all of those issues. So how could he be the leader of the Democrats when he doesn't agree with the priorities of not just the progressives of the entire democratic base? How does that make sense? Because you're going to get 218 votes. Well, no, because that's what I'm talking about. The actual conditions within the caucus, where I believe that so that the caucus writ large is too often out of touch with everyday people, and that they have, and we have, convinced ourselves that the things that we think matter most, the inside ball game is somehow more important that we know more than what people on the outside think. And that's why I said, the conditions that we live in right now, we have to change those very quickly. And I think that is a small window, you know, the first leadership vote happened on the 18th, and anything that will happen, that will change will have to happen between that this day and that day. Do we get people to actually call the question, do we get people to actually start to be able to debate, right, to debate what people actually want, and what direction we want people to go to. That's what I'm like desperately focused on. I want us to be able to talk about this. I want us to be able to disagree without the idea that there will be retribution. I want all the progressives to be able to actually speak up, speak loudly, not agree with the direction that we're going in, and still be able to participate in our democratic process. Because what, I mean, leaders, Jeffries, they say, the American people don't want what they say. They don't want retribution. They want us to get things out. I want that to exist here within its caucus too. Yeah. And that's how we create this space for us to actually push, for us to actually, you know, move in the right direction. Is there a fear that if you end up with Schumer incident and Jeffries in the house that there's a real missed opportunity here, and I'm not even just talking about politics. I'm talking about delivering for people and that you end up with, you know, a similar level backlash in the other direction and a new ushering and a fascism that doesn't do anything. I think that's something that anybody who's all levels of leadership need to take very seriously. Are we meeting this moment? Are you prioritizing, are we prioritizing our own institutional comfort and missing this moment? That's a very real risk. Absolutely. There are a lot of people who got in here on the wave, and it's not going to be easy to keep those seats. We will have to demonstrate that we have done something, that they are bold, that they can be effective. But we also need leadership that will allow people to be bold and effective and demonstrate that back to the American people. So yeah, I think that people do, I think so, I do. But I also think that a bigger threat is not just those two people, and I think that there's a lot of just focus on how Kim Jeffries or Chuck Schumer, and not focuses on their are various caucuses that have influence. But they're going to have a power. And so will them. And so will they. You know, who also have a lot of power, people who have gabbles, and they're all running for leadership right now too, the-- What won't a lot of that also be set though by who is the-- If we have a hearing, or if we have a markup on a bill, or if we have a hearing, then I'll be set by the person who runs the committee. So there's a share, but there is an instance of share, and the reality is that all these leaders, I can't talk, I can't speak for Chuck Schumer. Yeah. But I can say that how Kim Jeffries, he has advisors, he has people around him. Some of those people have been elected by the larger caucus, some of those people are there. What are your specific asks for him? Oh, my specific ask for every-- my first specific ask, actually, I have a very first specific ask. Okay. I believe that anybody who wants to be the leader right now has to demonstrate that they understand the needs of all parts of our party, not as their disparate needs. But I think that whether you are from a world community, or an urban core, where we just vote it, you know, D plus 60, you know? I think that those people believe that they need health care, that they need their needs to be met, whether it is groceries or gas, that affordability thing, it's not a slogan, it's not a buzzword. People can't afford things, and they want to see their government work. I think that we need to have a much deeper respect for the millions of people who came into this process because a progressive spoke to their needs, spoke to the vision that they want in this country. And I think that we need leadership to say, actually, we need some of these more establishment people to stop taking hits, not at me, or not at Zoran, or not at any of these new folks. You're taking hits, for instance, all of the Muslims across the country who now see the first senator, and they'll see a future where Muslims can actually maybe be represented in our government. You know, people who see, you know, young working class black folks who are actually ascending the ranks, who have a perspective, who deserve to be heard, our government is supposed to be represented. I want my leader to acknowledge that. I want my new, my leader to foster that. So that's my first ask for whoever wants to be leader, that you have that vision, that you're able to actually put aside whatever your personal strides, whatever personal part you come from, and that you can actually meet that part of the moment too. Is a Medicare for all vote a must for you? I believe that is time. I believe that is time, but I don't just want to vote. I want Medicare for all whipping. I want us to do, and I want our leadership to do work to actually get people there to create the conditions so that all of these folks who will say that, well, maybe they can't take that vote because it'll be too damaging for them. I want them to create the conditions for them to do that, for them to be bold. I want them to create the permission structure for people to take the right vote. I think that that's my second ask, right? Too often we're given excuses to people to do the wrong thing, and we're punishing people who do the right thing, people who do the both thing. I remember when, I remember many of the votes that we stood alone on, and I imagine that we're going to do that more, and I hope that we won't have to, because I hope that more people will understand that doing the right thing is actually a reward in itself. I think some of these new members from deep red districts are going to surprise folks, because I was listening to Chuck Cobbard, who just got elected. He's the one who asked him for Virginia Fox down in North Carolina, this very red district. No one would have thought that this guy would win. And he's like, I'm a moderate, that means I support Medicare for all. You know, that's, and those are the sorts of things, because these are people who came out of the Democrats' base. Exactly. And that's where the base is. But also, I want to say, my big, my big ask is money at politics. We got to address this money in politics issue, because if you are corporate bot, then you can't move on anything. Yes. And I think that that is for the whole caucus. You want Medicare for all? Yeah. We have a money in politics issue, right? You want to do something about the genocide? We got to, we definitely have money in politics issue. Definitely require representative Jeffries taking a different approach than he's taken in the past. And everybody, everybody else. Yeah. Let me just ask you about then the notion of working, trying to work with Trump, Abdul-Assad, the Center for Elect, L.S.I.D. H.A.D. had an idea for how to get Medicare for all through. This is E5, guys, let's take a listen. - I am happy to meet with him, like I'll meet with anyone who can advance the goals I ran on. To get money out of politics, put money in pockets, pass Medicare for all. I said this, if he wants to pass Trump care for all, which will guarantee health care to everyone and put his name on it, like he's putting his name on everything, I'm gay, let's see if he wants to do that. So I haven't had any outreach. I'm happy to sit down with him. - President Trump went on 60 minutes. He just said he was open to doing some sort of a path to citizenship, immigration reform, type of bill with Democrats. I mean, are you open to that and are you hopeful that something like that could come to pass? - Now, personally, I don't necessarily believe anything that comes out of his mouth, but I mean, that's just me being in this space long enough to know, I want to see your cards. I want to see you do the thing. That's what the American people need, but I will tell you something. When people ask me who I'm willing to work with, I am willing to work with anybody who was moving along the pathway of justice. So if you want to help us to get Medicare for all, then I want you at the table. If you're earnestly going to do that, if you're going to help us to stop ice from existing, but in the meantime, stop ice from harassing, profiling, even killing American citizens and just a bit of Americans, whether they are citizens or not, then yeah, I'm happy to work with you. I'm not happy to work with people on further enshrining races and inherently discriminatory systems. I'm not happy to work with people on things that cut benefits from my people that make it harder for our people to survive, make it harder for them to get by. I'm not willing to work with people and that's not what my foreign citizenship means with me. I'm willing to work in it by partisan way to make life easier for people in our lives. - Last question for you. What can we do to defund and end the Iran War as soon as possible? - Well, first of all, that is a political well-part of issue. The Congress has to be and has to act as a co-equal branch and equal branch of government to the executive branch for the longest time, right? If it's not even a go back to the Republicans 'cause Democrats fall short of the glory got too often. But shoot, if everybody from Johnson to Comer, they were just all laying down and just kind of advocating their responsibility to be a counterbalance. They were advocating their responsibility to put any sort of check our balance on the executive branch. We have to immediately reassert our status as not just an equal branch, not just that counterbalance and a check in a balance, but actually the branch of government that has the exclusive right to declare war. That is our power still. And the only way that we can stop it is by taking it back and then holding the executive branch accountable to that. But that is, I think, what America's want. That's when we say we want accountability. We absolutely want accountability. We want to hold people who have done things that are illegal, who have gone against the Congress or have gone against the American people. No, they should be accountable on today, on January 3rd. - Representative Summary Lee. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. - Thanks for having me. - Thank you guys so much for watching. We have a great show for everybody tomorrow. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) - In October 2021, my brother David was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This podcast. It's weird and messy and vulnerable and I'm gonna share all of it with you. - Listen to my brother David on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. - He looks and he goes, "You don't look like you suffered in the eating disorder." I never received scholarship, I need to pay for my student loans. - Listen to the Curse of Miss America on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. - This is an iHeart Podcast. - Guaranteed Human.