This Democrat could be Elon Musk's worst nightmare if he wins

My guest today is running for Congress in Tennessee's 9th District. Justin Pearson, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here with you. It's great to see you. So a lot of our listeners probably remember you from 2023 when you, alongside some colleagues, were protesting against gun violence on the floor of the Tennessee House of Representatives. You were dubbed the Tennessee Three, and then you and Representative Jones were actually expelled from the House and ultimately reinstated after winning special elections. What did that experience teach you about politics, and what lessons from it are you bringing to this race? I mean, one of the biggest lessons is that the rise of autocracy and authoritarianism in our country is real, and Tennessee has been a testing grounds for what we're seeing all across the country. People are abusing and misusing their power in the Republican Party in ways that are dangerous for democracy. But it also showed me that they are completely out of touch and out of step with what most Tennesseans want and what they need. Seventy-one percent of Tennesseans, including Magna Republicans, want to see guns. My wife and I both have our firearms and our permits to carry, lifetime permits to carry. We are not against people having access to firearms. We just want people to be responsible gun owners. And that's the majority of Tennesseans. But the NRA, the Tennessee Firearms Association, had convinced my Republican colleagues that it's in their best interest not to do what the people in Tennessee want. And in this campaign, which is now a campaign across 200 miles, 15 counties after Memphis was broken into thirds, really is building coalition. But people, through the common ground that we have, increasing the minimum wage, helping small businesses, increasing access to health care, stopping toxic data centers, which is what most people in the state want, that, again, my opponent and this administration is completely out of touch with. You mentioned you're a longtime advocate for gun safety laws. There's no American political issue that frustrates me more. I mean, I was in the White House during the Sandy Hook shooting in the aftermath. It is so obvious we need more and better gun safety laws than this. But this, like, small, radicalized coalition and movement are able to block, like, so much of what we're trying to do at the federal level. What do you say to people that have lost hope on ever getting more gun safety laws in America? Yeah, please don't give up hope, because that's how they win. You just have to ask yourself the reverse question. If I give up hope, who does that benefit? If I quit fighting, who does that benefit? It doesn't benefit the people that we care about, the people that we love, people like my brother, God rest his soul, who tragically passed away by gun violence. If you're ever struggling, we know that things can be better and they can be different. And in fact, even since the horrible mass shooting in Nashville at the Covenant School, more states have passed gun safety regulations and laws. More communities are doing what they can to sort of beef up the efforts to protect their kids and their students. And are we seeing the slide back in places like Tennessee where they tried to make it so teachers could carry firearms? Yes. But we can't say that we're not making it. We're not making any progress. More people are becoming aware, being engaged. More states are doing things that they can to protect their communities. So we can't give up hope. We really can't. We have to keep the faith. That is overriding. A lot of states are doing important things. A lot of communities around the country are saying, no, this is insane. We do not need to allow, you know, machine guns in high schools in America. That's not – arming teachers is not a way to keep kids safe. That's just a crazy idea. The district you're running in is one of the most shameless examples of Republican gerrymandering that we have seen lately. Backstory for listeners is earlier this year, the Supreme Court made a ruling that further hollowed out the Voting Rights Act. Then Trump demanded Tennessee Republicans gerrymander the state. They dutifully listened. I think like a week later – I mean you can correct me if I'm wrong on this timeline. Republicans released a new map that carves Memphis into three pieces and distributes the voters into three separate districts. Can you just explain to listeners like what that means in practice for the people you're trying to represent and how it's changed the way that you're running this campaign? Yeah. When I initially was running this race, I was going up against a 20-year status quo Democratic establishment incumbent. And three months before we were going to win that primary, Republicans in Nashville at the behest of Donald Trump said, you know what, we're going to break Memphis, which had its own congressional district for over 40 years, into thirds. And so you have neighbors, quite literally neighbors, who are in two different congressional districts. And it's been really difficult, honestly, for a lot of people to understand, to grab and grapple with like what that means. I've had instances where people didn't see me on the ballot and they decided not to vote, so I've had to encourage a lot of people to go back and vote. The idea was that this would allow Republicans to politically deprive black folks of the ability to choose a representative of their own choosing, because we had a majority in the initial District 9 and now we're only representing a third in the new three districts – District 9, 5 and 8. But I will say it has not deterred us at all. The next week, I traveled all 15 counties on a listening tour, and I started to meet people and understand that the same systems impacting people as it relates to housing, for instance, in Memphis are hurting people who are up at Giles County. The same corporations that I fight are maybe called XAI by Elon Musk or Valero or Refinery. But my farmers in Savannah, they're dealing with Cargill and John Deere and Monsanto, the same billionaire class we're up against. It keeps showing up just in different ways, and so I'm finding the ways that we have more solidarity and similarities than differences. You mentioned data centers. I mean, a bunch of data centers moved to your backyard literally recently, including one from Elon Musk called Colossus, I believe. Not really beating the rap on the kind of evil billionaire, you know, rap with that name, but whatever. It's crazy. Colossus? What are we doing here? So what has the impact been of those data centers on the quality of life for residents? And how has it changed the political conversations in your view? Yeah. So when he built Colossus 1, it's three miles away from my wife and I's home. He used 35 illegal gas turbines for over a year. And he was allowed to by our Democratic mayors, the health department, all just allowed him to pollute and to harm and to ultimately and tragically likely kill people due to the increases in nitrogen oxide, the increases in formaldehyde, and the levels of pollution. Now he's built another gas plant right in North Mississippi in South Haven, which is a few more miles south, with 59 illegal gas. He's built another gas plant right in North Mississippi in South Haven, which is a few miles south, with 59 illegal gas. He's built another gas plant right in South Haven, which is a few more miles south, with 59 illegal gas. He's built another gas plant right in South Haven, with people, that they are not on the side of the people at all. They're on the side of the billionaires and corporations and Democrats just have a responsibility in this moment to take what we believe and share it with the folks who are voting. So your opponent, Brent Taylor, he's, I believe, Trump endorsed Republican. I think I read that he celebrated the deployment of the National Guard to Memphis, despite the objections of the local city council. Why did he do that? Does that does he not have faith in the local police to keep order? Like, why would he celebrate the military descending on your city? No, Brent Taylor hates Memphis. And now he's trying to represent it, not as a person who really serves the interests of the people who live here, but as an overseer. He's a multimillionaire living in a plantation style mansion in East Tennessee, because that is his mindset, right, that we are all on his plantation. And it's really sickening, because it's been devastating, the decisions he's made, even as a state senator, laws that we pass to impute actual traffic stops. He actually went to the statehouse and undid those laws with preemption. Anytime we've tried to have progress, he's done everything he could to take it back. And now this task force that Trump has brought into our community has actually killed four black men since they've been here over the last year. Hundreds of our immigrant neighbors have been detained. Just two weeks ago, 121 people were kidnapped and taken to Mason, Tennessee, where there's an ICE facility. And at the last city council meeting that I was attending, over 40 children were there whose parents have been taken. We are in a very bad situation in Memphis, in District 9, because of the policies of the Trump administration, and the support that they've received from people like Trump endures, Brett Taylor, that don't care about people. And ultimately, when we are dealing with the crisis in our politics, as an entire political party that is really dedicated to the propping up of a certain person and certain people, and then the pressing down of everyone else, and it's time for everyone else to unite, to fight back. The issue of ICE generally, I mean, it's sort of like risen and fallen in terms of the amount it's in the conversation or is covered in the media. Obviously, the horrific murders by ICE officers of civilians in Minnesota were sort of the peak of that conversation. Are people in Memphis, like, are they as angry about ICE as other communities? Like, what is the conversation there like about those deployments of ICE officers? If I'm being honest with you, there's some tension in our community between the elected officials and the community at large. The citizens are the people who live here do not want ICE, do not want the National Guard, do not want the military occupation of our community. We want poverty eradication. But this is why I tell people I stand up against both parties, because our Democratic Mayor, Paul Young, has been supportive of the deployment. And that has been different than what we saw in Chicago. That's different than what we saw in Los Angeles. That's different than what we saw in Minnesota. A lot of our locally elected leaders have accepted militarization as the solution, even though they're Democrats. And I think we have a responsibility to demand that the federal government not spend resources militarizing our communities, but instead investing in it. And if we had been given $350 million, we could have eradicated poverty. But instead, we've got National Guard folks shooting 20-year-old Tyron Johnson in his back. We've got people who are part of this unsafe task force killing Jonah Neal, who was in the middle of a mental health crisis. And his mom was calling to get him help, and he was shot and killed. Or Darin Pingren was at work, at Burger King, and they said he reached for a gun while he was working at the stove. These are incidences that are happening that are hurting and traumatizing our community. But if I'm being honest with you, nationally, it hasn't gotten nearly as much attention as any of the killings that have happened by ICE. But our community has experienced four deaths by the Trump administration and these federal agents over the last year. It hasn't gotten nearly as much attention as any single one of the killings by ICE in any of the other communities. God, that's horrifying. Jesus through the eyes. It's like literally just at his job at the grill, and they claimed he was reaching for a gun. That seems insane. No, it makes no sense whatsoever. Final question. I know your opponent is largely self-funding his campaign. Curious how that has impacted your race. And for people listening, if they want to get involved, if they want to support you, what can they do at this point? Yes. So he has given himself $1.5 million in this race. I do not have $1.5 million to give myself. Trump mentioned us last week in his rally in Tennessee. Republicans are terrified because this was supposed to be an easy win for them, right? They drew the district to be Trump plus 21 points. And two polls now have us within just four points of winning this. So if you go to votejustinj.com, you can donate. You can also volunteer from anywhere in the country or world, helping us to call people in District 9. If we get out the vote, we can break the gerrymander because maps don't vote, people do. And we're in early voting right now in Tennessee through October 29th. And we need all the help that we possibly can get to make sure that we win, that we break this gerrymander. And that we show the country that the South is a place where we need to fight for our democracy and fight for our future. Well, Justin, thank you for being a longtime fighter for gun safety laws. Thanks for doing the show. And everyone, go check out his website because we need you there in Congress. So thank you. Thank you so much, my friend. God bless you. Thank you.