Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/26/26: Trump Humiliates MAHA RFK Jr, Hakeem Caught Funneling AIPAC Money, AI Midterm Wars Breakout

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Krystal and Ryan discuss Trump humiliates RFK Jr, Hakeem caught funneling AIPAC money, AI midterm wars break out. Nida Allam: https://nidaallam.com/ Leaders We Deserve: https://leaderswedeserve.com/ David Dayen: https://prospect.org/ DNC Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/take-action-release-the-dnc-autopsy    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. So we had a Maha Surgeon General Pick who was taking a grilling yesterday in the Senate. So this is Casey Means, who is a physician, but she is not currently licensed, and she also do not finish her surgical residency. So those are things that came up in the hearings, but also her views on a variety of subjects and her apparent conflicts of interest were also very significant here. She's a sort of like a wellness influencer. She's also an entrepreneur. She has this medical device that she runs,

runs the company for. In any case, the first clip I want to show you here is a Republican senator Cassidy, who is questioning her intently, and he's a physician as well, who is questioning her intently on her views regarding vaccines and whether there is any vaccine link to autism. Let's take a listen to that. We've had an outbreak of whooping cough in Louisiana, vaccine preventable disease. Children have actually died from it. Think about it. A child, about the age of your child, dying from a vaccine preventable disease. And some have been scared to vaccinate their children because they've been told incorrectly that vaccines cause autism. Do you believe that vaccines, whether individually or collectively, contribute to autism? Senator Cassidy,

You're a physician. I'm a physician. The reality is that we have an autism crisis that's increasing, and this is devastating to many families, and we do not know, as a medical community, what causes autism. The administration has just committed a huge amount of funding to look at the exosome of all environmental factors that could be contributing to autism, and until we have a clear understanding of why kids are developing this at higher rates, I think we should not leave any stones unturned. There's been a lot of evidence showing that they're not implicated. Do you not accept that evidence? I do accept that evidence.

I also think that science has never settled. And I think that the effort to look at comprehensive cumulative exposures of our exosome into what is causing autism is important. I look forward to seeing those results and sharing the best public health information with the American people. So she obviously refuses there to rule out a link between autism and vaccines. This theory is widely discredited and, you know, so my mind is open. You know, we've got to continue to explore, which it just, you know, it shows you kind of what corner of the health and wellness universe she comes

from. And he asked her, Ryan, a bunch of questions about various vaccines, you know, would you recommend to a mother that her child get the measles vaccine? And she couldn't just come out and say, you know, she had to sort of spin and couldn't give just like straightforward answers on any of this stuff. Yeah, the measles one is killing me. Like, are we really, like, come on. Have we really forgotten that measles can be, you know, damaging and deadly? Like, what are we doing here? Chris Murphy went after her about those conflicts of interest that you mentioned. Let's roll D1. The document from the FTC says this. If you endorse a product through social media, your endorsement message should make it obvious when you have a relationship with the brand.

Are you familiar with that? So, as you know, there is a pending complaint regarding your failure to adhere to those guidelines. I'll give you an example. So there's a prenatal vitamin called we natal. Your filings before this committee show that you started receiving compensation in the the spring of 2024. And yet in September of 2024,

you posted a video saying that you had no financial relationship to the company, just a big fan. And then in October, you said, not sponsored, just love these. But in fact, you have documentation before this committee that showed when you said those things, you had a financial relationship. You had already started receiving money.

from that company. So you weren't telling the truth when you said you were just a fan. You were actually receiving money, correct? In any post where I said I am not receiving money, I had not been receiving money at that time. But you had received partnership fees for this particular prenatal vitamin. In fact, prior to September and October, you had posted partnership links in which you get compensated based upon click-throughs, correct? I'm happy to look at whatever documentation you're talking about, but I do not, this is, it's incorrect and it's a false representation. Crystal, what is, like, I don't understand how this is a conversation.

Like, if she's revealed that she was taking the money in the spring by the fall said she wasn't, like it sounds like you're caught. Yeah, I mean, he's got her. He's got her dead to rights here. How she's sticking by her story? He's got her dad to rights here. And not just here. There was an investigation, and he presses her on war of this stuff.

Out of 140 times where she promoted products on social media, she only disclosed. She failed to disclose her financial relationship in 79 of those times. And this is where I just, this whole crew utterly discussed me. Because here's the thing. There are big problems with our food system. There are big problems with our pharmaceutical, you know, testing regimes and like the corruption and that's one of the things they talk about, the like revolving door between the FDA. True. But then you bring in these literal snake oil salesmen

who are worse and more dishonest than the existing system. And so you're taking advantage of things that are real problems that people are genuinely concerned about and you look around the country like the country is deeply unhealthy. And then you put in a bunch of cranks who want to undercut the things that actually do work like, you know, measles vaccines. and then sell you a bunch of crap that isn't actually tested under anything remotely approaching the standards of the, you know, the pharmaceuticals, like these supplements and crap, they don't get, they hardly are tested or have to meet any sort of regulatory standard. They push this stuff and act like they're a better alternative to what we already have.

You know, for me, the tell is the fact that none of these people are interested in universal health care, which would be the first place you would start if you actually wanted to improve the quality of care in this country. But none of them, you know, they all have this very libertarian, like up by your bootstraps, up by your, you know, tallow oil or whatever beef tallow approach to health. And then they're deeply dishonest about their own financial ties. I'll give you another one with her. So her health tech company, it's called Levels. It's like glucose monitoring device and has probably already benefited from the fact that RFK Jr. has been pushing this wearable. tech. Now, she claims if she's, if she attains this position of Surgeon General, which I think is a little bit of a

question mark here. But anyway, if she attains a position, she's going to like, you know, not be involved in levels and she's going to divest and blah, blah, blah. But we can already see the track record of the way she's abused the trust of, you know, people who follow her who genuinely believe she has this sort of new agey approach and that she's writing the wrongs of the traditional medical system. And so that, to me, that abuse of trust is just so gross. Yeah. And so Angela also Brooks, Senator from Maryland, also pressed her on some of this. Let's roll D2. In your newsletter number 33, you acknowledge that PIC has sponsored you. Now, were you aware that this company was served notice under California's Proposition 65 for containing and failing to disclose that led above the allowable amounts of carcinogen and reproductive toxin was present? I just want to repeat, I've worked with the Office of Government Ethics. I'm not going to be taking any financial compensation.

already. So this is an ethics. We're talking about conflicts. And I have been cleared by the Office of Governance and Ethics through an exhaustive process. I have signed a letter that I will be fully compliant. And this is before, during, and after the term, I take it very seriously. And I'll work closer to them to make sure there are no conflicts. The point here is that you've received compensation from these companies, including Daily Harvest, where this company was subject to an investigation by the Food and Drug Administration after hundreds, became seriously ill. after consuming the product. And these are companies that you have received money from.

They've been investigated, and you are railing out against pharmaceutical companies that you say are advertising these products that mislead the public, and yet, you know, you've received compensation from companies, and you've promoted them in your newsletter, and you're doing the same thing the pharmaceutical companies are doing by advertising and influencing people for these products that have been deemed to be unsafe for the public. And, Crystal, I think this is actually the kind of stuff that a lot of Maha people might be even willing to look past if they thought they were getting results. They say, oh, this is the mainstream media, the corrupt media, you know, coming at people

who were trying to overturn the system. They didn't have a problem when Big Pharma was doing this. They didn't have a problem when the pesticide companies or the chemical companies were engaged in the revolving door. all of a sudden, you know, when our movement, you know, comes along, now all of a sudden they get concerned about conflicts of interest and corruption. I think they might be willing to even indulge some of those arguments from people that they trust like Casey or RFK Jr. But they're not getting what they want either. And I think that is huge. This was like a

just a lightning bolt to the Maha movement to put up D3 here. One of the chief objections that the Maha crowd has is to round up, is to this carcinogenic pesticide that is used extraordinarily liberally on American cops, I mean, American crops, and that a lot of research suggests is carcinogenic at certain levels. It's one thing for that, you know, and in fact, RFK Jr., you know, successfully won a multidis hundred million dollar lawsuit against Monsanto, which is now owned by bear, for, you know, the way that it was using and disclosing the risks around Roundup and glyphosate. Along comes the Trump administration and says, not only are we not going to kind of go to war against Roundup and Glyphosate,

but we are going to use the Defense Production Act, which is a kind of 1950s, 50s-era law that allows the Pentagon to legally mandate that a business produced something. Hegset is threatening to use the Defense Production Act on Anthropic to legally mandate them to allow the Pentagon to use Claude for its autonomous armed drones and for mass surveillance. They're trying to use this DPA on Claude. But they did use the DPA on bear and talk. hold bare, you must produce this product that the Mahamombs think is killing people. And because they are mandating that you produce it, then you're going to have some level of

legal immunity for the production of this. So not only are you not kind of going to war against it, you are actively siding with them. This came after, you know, the EPA named chemical lobbyists to one of its top positions. And there were a number of other glaring sirens that the old industry was actually still in place here. But this one has, like, this one has people absolutely freaking out. Times quotes a Turning Point USA, Amaha podcaster, saying, like, I'm done. Like, I can't persuade these women to vote for Republicans in the midterms. when you're doing stuff like this.

So that's my take. Like, I think they'd be willing to look past to all of the garbage and the corruption and the, oh, there's lead and this vitamin that she was pushing. It's like, yeah, it happens. But to do this, on top of all that, like, I'm sure it's check pleas for a lot of these women.

What do you think? Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I will say, I think you're correct that they would be willing to overlook or just not dig into and just feel like, oh, this is just a smear campaign against her, she's trying to overturn the system. I will say as someone who, you know, is in the overturned the system camp that one thing I have learned is that you actually have to hold your people to a

higher standard because you can't expect that the media is going to be even-handed when it comes to insiders versus outsiders. So, you know, there may be a legitimate critique there that, you know, previous people who had various compromise interests with the pharmaceutical industry or whatever, they didn't get the same level of scrutiny. I'm not saying that's the case or not, but I would certainly be open to that argument. But I think if you are going to understand what, is required to actually make change to entrenched interests, whether it's, you know, big food or big chemicals or big pharma, you are going to have to be, yes, you're going to have to hold yourself to a higher standard. You are going to have to meet a higher bar. You are going to have to be perfect,

just as Nora and Mom Tani in the way that they're like, you know, trying to turn a snowball fight into a scandal in New York City, how aggressively they will come at you. But putting that aside, you know, on this specific issue of glyphosate, it kind of reminds me of like, Like the, it's like the Epstein Files moment for the podcast pros. It's sort of like that for the Baha moms where it's just like, I can't come up with a colorable rationale that's not just the same old standard issue industry corruption. And then all of your heroes who five seconds ago before they were actually, RFK Jr, I think there was a report that even came out during this administration sounding the alarm about glyphosate. But then the moment that Trump says, no, we're doing this. They're like, okay, well, we understand and we get it.

and we support it and we stand by it. She got asked, Casey Means got asked in this hearing, I think by Tim Cain, specifically about this issue. And her answer was effectively like, well, it's complicated. And, you know, I don't think that's going to satisfy anyone. It's very clear what's going on here. You want the job. You want the access.

You want the power. You want whatever else that entails. And so whatever principles you had previously, like many before you, like Tulsi Gabbard before you, you're willing to say, well, you know, I see it differently now. Now it's, before it was clear, now it's cloudy. Now it's complicated. To make Casey Means an RFK Jr. defend Roundup is tantamount to when he made RFK Jr. Like eat McDonald's on the airplane.

It's like a gang initiation. The only thing that could be worse would like literally spraying Roundup on the McDonald's. You're like, eat it. Wasn't he very involved in like Hudson River cleanup? He spouted the Riverkeepers, a tremendous organization. the roundup on the McDonald's and throw it in the Hudson River. And you can bet RFK Jr. I'd be there to be like, I understand why.

Yeah, I support this now. This is fine. It's just no principle. And this is the way that a lot of people in D.C. think because they view it like, okay, but if I don't play the game and like do this thing, then whatever other plans Casey Means has or RFK Jr. has or whatever, I'm not going to have a chance to do those. And ultimately, it's just a road, especially in. under Trump who seems to delight in finding highly specific ways to humiliate his underlings

and force them to abandon any core principles that they ever claim to hold that would give them some sort of independence from him. Like that is, I think, something that he very strategically, you know, attempts to do. Like, he will, he will identify. Okay, what is this person's like, if they have some sort of principle they're trying to hold on to you, how do I destroy that so that then they're just nothing but a loyalist to me because that's all he wants? And also, Also, it's useless and illegal to use the Defense Production Act for this purpose. He claimed that it's an emergency, like a national security emergency because we don't have enough food in the United States. That that, and that this is to protect the food supplies.

Are you serious? We're starving here? We don't have enough. We're okay. Yeah. You didn't actually have to do this. That's not one of them. Yeah.

Now, the quality of the food we could talk about, the price of the food, we could certainly talk about. but just the quantity of it, it is not initially aware of. They, they, they, and Congress, Republican Congress is trying to push through legislation that would give bare immunity around these RFK Jr. kind of led, um, challenges that got pushed back by environmental groups.

They're now trying to put it into the farm bill. Like this is like, this is crazy. This is crazy. Like, and so the environmental groups to the Mahama, I was like, what did you expect? Like, this is like, this is who they are. Like, but, you know, You know, RFK Jr., he literally sued them.

I don't blame them for believing that this guy who sued them over this. And one actually would fight for it. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of this really coalesced around the COVID and vaccines. And, you know, that's where that energy really coalesced this movement and moved it very quickly from, you know, it used to be that anti-VAC sentiment was more located. on the left. And, you know, that was some particular, like, left-wing crankery around, like, hippies and, you know, wealthy liberals in L.A. and stuff like that. And, yeah, and now they, because of COVID, that all realigned, like, that cranky, crank part of the liberal movement realigned into the right. And so now I'd say they're kind of, like, I guess they're up for grabs,

you know, and probably just kind of nihilistic at this point, to be honest with you. but I think there's an opening. If you had a candidate on the Democratic side who was embracing, you know, Medicare for all and truly embracing changes to our food system and made that a priority and health and fitness because it's not that there's no point there. Even with regard to, like, medical autonomy, it's not that there's no point there whatsoever. You know, I think obviously there's a bunch of junk science around vaccines that's just utter and complete nonsense.

It's like you said on like measles and stuff. I mean, it's just utterly destructive. and we're beginning to see the devastating impact of more and more people opting out of taking any of these vaccines. But so I guess there's, you know, there's an opening there. We'll see. We'll see if anyone's able to, with a more legitimate program, capture their imagination in the future. All right. And also, so we went a little bit long.

We're going to save the Save Act, the Make American Elections Great Again, an explainer. Maybe we'll hopefully get to that tomorrow. But up next, we've got Dave. Dan and David Hogg to talk about this incredible story of a candidate, a Democratic candidate in North Carolina who swore off APAC money and yet is getting APAC money anyway. We'll explain the various loops and loopholes that were able to track this money through and getting into the race, which now is, it's Nidalam versus Valerie Boucher. The election is on Tuesday in North Carolina. So I stick around for that.

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A-PAC and AI are both swamping House elections as we head into. Next week will be the first, next Tuesday will be the first kind of primary of the 2026 season. To talk about that, we're going to be joined by two Davids, David Dayn and David Hogg. David Dayan is the executive editor of the American Prospect. David Hogg is the head of leaders we deserve, which is participating in a lot of these primaries around the country. Dan, and let's put A2 up there just to, because David, Dane and I have been doing a bunch of reporting on the kind of secret APAC primary effort going on in Illinois. And we'll talk about that kind of on the back half of this program. We're also going to be joined by Nita Alam, who I interviewed, I did a pre-teachian.

taped an interview yesterday with her, and we'll attach that to the end of this project. So I want to start with actually Nita because it's an incredible case here. Let's start with you, David Hogg, because you guys have endorsed Nita Lam. So she ran in 2022 against Valerie Fushi. Do you say it Fushi or Fushi? Fushi. Fushi? Okay. I've been doing Fushi. It's tough. So she ran against Fushi in 2022. More than $2 million of A-PAC money comes into that range. and a bunch of crypto money as well, I think, from Sam Bankman-Fried. Right. And she wins the race.

Kind of close, but I think nine points or something. It's a nine-point margin. With a crowded field. The crowded field. Since then, there's been a little redistricting. So it's actually a little bit more progressive. And my understanding is that if that 2022 race were run in this new district, she actually wins. So, like, and also Fushi has done very little fundraising.

I was checking it last night. I think she raised less than $550,000 for this cycle, which is for an incumbent, she was outraised by Nidalam, who just launched her race in December. I mean, she's free. Fushi is freaking out so much. I got a text, a screenshoted text from Fushi to another member of Congress,

who's a friend of mine where she's saying, this group's leaders we deserve is coming after me. Please, you know, help me out, send me money. And of course, that member wasn't going to, but that was literally less than a week ago, that she is currently texting members of Congress freaking out. And I think it shows the weakness that, some of these incumbents are in.

When you're propped up by APEC, you don't actually have to be that strong of a campaigner to win a lot of the time, especially if it's a crowded primary and you don't need to win by that much. In this case, we're dealing with a different district. It also has had some of the most doge cuts of any congressional district in the country with a much more significant. This is Durham area. Yeah.

Yeah. It's the Raleighuron-like area. And on top of that, the district, because of the redistricting, as you mentioned, is significantly more South Asian than it was previously as well. And we're dealing with an electorate that is in. incredibly fed up with the state of the party right now. All right. That's interesting that she is going for members of Congress because that's like low-hanging

fruit. Less than two weeks before her election. Well, it wasn't just members. It was publicly. So, you know, Fushi, like many candidates, particularly ones who are desirous of super PAC money, has a red box. And you know what a red box is. That's a section of their website where they sort of...

Often with a literal red box around it. where they sort of soft coordinate with super PACs and say, here's what voters need to know in this district. And she changed the language on her red box right before all this money came in. And previously it just had sort of a generic message. And then you could almost see the four alarm fire in the red box. Voters need to immediately hear that stop waiting. That need a alarm is getting a million.

from dark money and Valerie Fushi won't be bought. It was like such an urgent message. And now what we've seen in the week since is that those super packs have delivered. Valerie Fushi won't be bought. Please dump millions of dollars into this campaign. Please spend this money to tell people that I won't be bought. So we can put up E1 here. This is a tweet from Dave Dan, where you kind of spell out the,

how badly she was actually getting outspent, which is extremely unusual for an incumbent until this AI, quote, AI safety super PAC, which is funded by Anthropic came in. They've now dropped $1.3 million into the room. 1.6? Up to 1.6? It just keeps going, $1.6 million. And there's another pack that is called the Article 1.6 pack that has come in, and It looks like so far they've publicly said that they're going to do 600,000 might be more if they can make it work.

And so I wanted to talk about this pack because this is an incredible one. So Fushi in, you know, so she got the $2 million in A-PAC money. She then takes a bit of a turn after the genocide starts in, in Gaza and says that she's, she, she endorses the block. the Bombs Act, which is kind of the progressive caucuses, kind of more mild version of of conditioning aid to Israel. And then Liz Summer said she's not going to take APAC money. Yeah. I would not necessarily call it taking a turn as I would being turned. So there was a lot of grassroots pressure in the district. And the impetus for her saying, I reject this money, was a town hall in the district where she was confronted over meeting with Netanyahu on a congressional

delegation and also the previous support for APEC money in 2022. And she said, well, look, I'm, I'm not doing that anymore. And I even heard behind the scenes that she was discouraging APEC from doing unbranded fundraisers for her. Like she actually was, at least for a time, probably when she thought she wasn't going to have a primary candidate. For a time, was really seemed sort of committed to this. And now, we might you take us to where we are today. Before we do the reveal of how the A-PAC money is getting into the district now, why did you guys get in, like, what made you get into this particular race?

Because as you're mapping out the limited resources that you have, you know, it's sizable, but it's not infinite. What made you pick this one? Because I've heard the argument from some people that, like, hey, Fushi, because she was able to be pressured at the grassroots level, and she got better, like we should reward that. by re-electing her. And so that it tells other candidates come our way and will welcome you rather than,

you know what, we're going to take you out anyway. Ultimately, Nita's going to be here for the long haul, a lot longer than Fushi. Nita also in this district, what we saw was that for us, it's not just a matter of whether or not somebody's taking money from APEC. Of course, we're going to support candidates who are against that, like Nita. But it's also the fact that Fushi was taking ridiculous amounts of corporate money as well. The crypto stuff. And what happened here was when Fushi was pressured on taking that corporate money,

you know what her defense of it was, was, well, these are corporations that are in my district, so I'm happy to take it, which is an absurd, you know, logic to use here. Like, let's press this further. Let's say that there is an ICE detention center, that Core Civic or Geo Group, you know, runs in Fushi's district. Is she going to start taking money from private prisons? Yeah. Let's say that there is, that Smith and Weston. Let's say that Smith and Weston.

Yes, she will. That's say that Smith & Wesson, the same company that manufactured the AR-15 used in Parkland, moves to her district, the same AR-15s that are used around the country by mass shooters. If they're in her district, does that mean she's going to start taking money from Smith & Wesson? Like, where do you draw the line here? Because if it's all of a sudden saying, well, you know, I'm not going to take money from A-PAC, but I'm fine taking it from Lockheed Martin, for example, the people that are helping to make the arms that are being used against children in Gaza, is it really that much different in the first place?

Can I say a quick thing? about the AI aspect of this before we go into the APEC part. So NIDA Elam gets into the race in December. Right. Which is very late. We started working in third July, by the way. A March primary, right? But almost at the exact same time, there is this commission that Hakeem Jeffries puts together on AI and the innovation economy. That was December 11th. Yeah. Almost the exact same time that I think December 11th, she launched December 9th. He puts her on the commission, but it was already, but it's already known.

People knew that she was going to launch. That she was going to get it. And Jeffries appoints Fushi as one of the co-chairs. Just three. Do you think that's because of her expertise in technology? Well, she represents the research triangle. It's clearly a high-tech area, innovation-heavy area. But wait.

So then she's bumping along and she, you know, there are these packs that come out, you know, people, grassroots packs like leaders we deserve, but also this pack. called American Priorities, which we revealed is specifically designed to counter APEC influence in a bunch of races. They put in almost $800,000 into this race. Backing Nita alum. Backing Nita alum. But last week, when Fushu's being outspent 10 to 1, there's a poll that goes into the district. Public policy polling, which is based in North Carolina, puts this poll out. I've seen the screenshots of it. It does head to head. Alam versus Fushi, and those functionally are the only two candidates in this primary.

But it also asks attitudes towards AI among members of the district. And we don't know who spent and it has not been released. And I've asked public policy polling many times if they're going to release this poll. But clearly, the amount of money being poured in, which has nothing to do with AI, these ads, of course, shows to, two things. Number one, that poll probably showed some bad news for Valerie Fushi. And number two, it probably showed some bad news on attitudes toward AI or otherwise they would have elevated that she's the head of the AI commission. Right. And this is a good of how Washington works story for people. Like the House Financial Services Committee is referred to internally as a money committee, for instance,

because you put people on there who are in vulnerable races and need to raise a lot of money. And because you're now regulating the banks and the private equity and hedge funds, you can then go to the banks and shake them down for money. And so what Akeem Jeffries did here is he created a task force that's going to write Democratic policy on AI, puts her on it, also put Josh Godheimer on it, who's a voracious, like his historic fundraiser. Who has also gotten money from the same AI-based hat. And as a Microsoft executive. So has those links. So it's a fun, it's a signal. Like, if you, like, give money to this person. Right.

And I think you guys have been vindicated in your analysis here by the two plus million dollars that she's already taken because people were like, no, she's doing better now. Right. Like, leave her alone. The real test of somebody's values is when they're under pressure. And we knew that if she was willing to accept this money when she was running in her first race, when she came under pressure that there would be more super PACs, specifically these super PACs, like the AI one, you know, this Article 1 stuff, everything like that, that came in.

supported her that if she really was committed to that, she wouldn't be taking that money and she wouldn't be facing such ferocious attacks that wouldn't be landing as much because it wouldn't be true. Right. So one of the thing on that is that there's actually a live fight in the district around AI and specifically around an AI data center in a city, small town called Apex, that would use as much electricity as the entire town. And there's been pretty vociferous. pushback on that and in other parts of the district where there's actually a moratorium in a place called Chatham County. But in Apex, hundreds of constituents sent an open letter to both candidates

saying, will you oppose this data center, number one, and number two, will you not take any money from AI? And Nid Alam signed that and Valerie Fushi did not. And so I think there is a potential for backlash here, at least among people in Apex who are very agitated about the placement of this data center. Do you have a sense of how much this data center controversy in the district is playing in the race so far? I'm sure it plays a significant role. Obviously, when we did our own polling in the race, we didn't specifically ask about AI. We are trying to see, like, what is the pathway to victory? Because for leaders we deserve, we are not, we don't have an infinite amount of resources. We rely on 240,000 individual donors so that our candidates don't have to take corporate money so that we can

truly back them and not have them unilaterally disarmed. We saw a pathway for NIDA. We didn't ask about AI, but what I will tell you I think is probably having just as much, if not a bigger impact, is the fact that you simultaneously are dealing with a district where it has had some of the most doge cuts of any district in the country.

And it has a very high number. It's one of the youngest congressional districts in the country. It has a very high number of recent college grads that we know right now have an unemployment rate of around 45%. That feel like, and I'm sure that an AI data center is not going to jive well with them. Or the people who have their kids living at home right now after they graduate from

UNC or whatever other schools are in the district because of automation and AI. Interesting data point on that. In 2022, they moved the primary to May. It was after colleges had let out for the summer. This time it's in March, the college students will be there and likely be voting. And that was one of our first questions when we were looking at NDA back in June and July of 2025 was how do we time this so that nobody else gets in the race so that we don't have another situation where the field is fractured and then it's way harder to have a pathway to victory.

So it's just not a. And on top of that, are the college students actually going to be there? Because we've seen districts where, you know, in the past I've seen polling where a candidate looks like they're going to win because we account for a lot of college students turning out. And then it turns out, oh, spring break. They're on spring break. Or, oh, you know, it's summer break. And then they don't turn out.

And then the candidate loses. In this case, we looked at the polling, we looked at the redistricting, and we saw a huge opportunity to show and send a shockwaves through the electoral system that if Nita wins here, I think will really send a chill down the spine of a lot of people in the establishment who historically have relied on corporations, relied on APEC, and thought that they were safe because of that. And ironically, the thing that used to keep them the most safe is now the thing that makes them most vulnerable. We at leaders we deserve are friends over at Justice Democrats, the Sunrise Movement, and other groups, and obviously you all too, are working to work. make the biggest asset these groups have, which is their money, their biggest liability. That gets harder with the shell packs, obviously. Right. But what I don't think people like Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer realize is that Gen Z and

millennials are increasingly, we're almost a majority of the electorate at this point. We, I don't think they understand how much we vehemently hate politicians that take corporate money and appear to engage in insider trading. As a generation, we feel like the entire system has been bought and sold out from underneath us. And when these politicians take corporate money, I think for a lot of them like Valerie Fushi, they're like, what? They're in my district. It's totally fine. They don't understand what that tells voters, which is that you are effectively being bribed by these corporations. You should talk about the article one thing. Yeah. And I mentioned that she raised $550,000.

More than $250,000, that was PACs, mostly corporate PACs, but some labor tax as well. Fushi. Yeah. So yes, to your point, it's like even the tiny amount of money she raised, most of it was from corporate packs. But yeah, so let's get the reveal on this article one thing, because this is, this is incredible. We've reported in the past, you know, 2024, A-PAC was using, APAC used a pro-science pack, 314 action to like, in Illinois, as Dan and I reported, they created these two fake packs, brand new packs. One was called, elect Chicago women. Elect Chicago women. Big concern for APEC is gender parity, yes. And Ford of Chicago. Chicago now. Like, A-PAC literally biting off of Mamdani's affordability letter. That's how unapologetic

they are. They have to hide where their money's coming. Yeah, and then there's the, and then they were coordinating donors through these unbranded fundraisers. And if you looked at the candidates they were supporting in these Illinois races, Laura Fine in Illinois 9, Donna Miller in Illinois 2, and Melissa Bean in Illinois 8, they were sharing hundreds of donors, hundreds of donors. Hundreds of donors. So it also donated in the past to A-PAC. Right. It's just a coincidence, though. Yeah, right. So that's how you can figure out in Chicago in the Illinois area, you know, that A-PAC is actually the one

that's behind this. Right. They say they're unapologetic about their participation. Right. It's just completely hiding it. Which it's, you know, it's totally illegal to participate in the political process. All we're asking is just, you know, do it with your chest out. Like, stand behind what you believe in. So that gets us to this article one pack. So its first spending was in New Jersey 11,

which is the one that people probably remember. This is Annalia Mejia and Tom Malinowski and the lieutenant governor of New Jersey, Taheshawai. A-Pak was behind Way. And so A-PAC spent millions tearing down Malinowski. And as you know from watching the show, they accidentally elected Mejia. Article 1 came in boosting Way.

And people are like, what is this Article 1-Pack? This is odd. So the second time it has ever spent any money is this $600,000 on behalf of Fushi. Now, I've been told by sources, some with direct knowledge of this, that this is Hakeem Jeffries pack, that Hakeem is guiding this. And there were some signals of that during the New Jersey race. If you look back at how this Article 1 pack was formed and who it's associated with a thing called Article 1 victory, that has. ties to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is a leadership organization, essentially, and ties to a bunch of swing district members of Congress who are the type of people

who the D-Triple C supports. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast and IHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal. Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary.

Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its fault of secrets.

Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini-driver. The Irish traveler. said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men.

Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom-loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want to chart side view

into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast, starting on February 24th on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Now, I've also been told by a source with knowledge of this that it is funneling APAC money.

So instead of using these elect Chicago women packs, Hakeem Jeffries is setting up a vehicle that is allowing APAC money to come through. And we know how they're doing it thanks to Matthew EDI's reporting out of Chicago. So we can put up E3 here. And so let's follow along because this is fun to unpack. So EDI obtained two emails that were privately sent by APAC

on August 21st. on September 15th. And what they were doing is they were raising money for Laura Fine, who's running in this Illinois-09, this kind of Chicago area district. And so the emails said, please support Laura Fine. So now we know it's APEC, because A-PAC is saying, please support Laura Fine and do it through this hidden webpage that's called the, quote, pro-Israel network. So it's a link that you can't really find unless APAC sends you directly there. So then we put up, put up this next, next, put up E4 here. So basically here are the emails. They, they run through. So he, this is him obtaining the actual emails if you didn't believe him the first time. And so put up

E5 here. And so then you go through the FEC filings. And he found that, more than 150 of fines donations, which were $300,000 came, it worked. They funneled the money to APEC. Often it's on the same day, all this money comes in because it's a virtual fundraiser, and often, you know, fine and other candidates are bundled in these emails, and you see the same amount of money going to the same candidates on the same day. And so they're using, and so you can put up the next element, So using this thing called Democracy Engine LLC, which sometimes shows up in the FEC to funnel the money through.

And so. And I've seen these too, by the way, and there are dozens of these virtual fundraisers. So what this is generally being done for individual donations to the candidate itself. What you're saying is that this is a similar mechanism being used for a super PAC. And we'll add this one in post because I didn't put it into the run. down. And so what they're doing is they're they also, APEC also sent directly to Hakeem Jeffries through this same process and using this democracy engine. So they funneled. So we'll put it up. We'll put it up here. The Jeffries Victory Fund, APAC sends directly through this process

to the Jeffries Victory Fund. So then it raises. And then Jeffries gives. to Article 1 pack and an Article 1 pack gives, you know, it donates it. Or there could be even another intermediary before it gets. Well, there is because, I mean, what we know is the 350,000 that went to Tahitia Re's race was raised from something called the Guzman Foundation, which no one's ever heard of and no one knows anything about. So it could be the, that could be the fourth link in the chain, right? So it's a fundraiser that goes to Jeffries. Jeffries then gives the Guzman Foundation or something, some other shell. That gives to Article One Pack, and then that Article One Pack raises the money for the ads or does the ads.

It's a really dumb way of going about it. Like so overcomplicated and condoluted in general. But it makes it hard to track and hard for people like us to understand where the money is actually coming from. Absolutely. I mean, that's the whole point. One thing to note, too, that I think people need to, should understand about why APEC can have such an effect as well when they give when they bundle money for candidates as they're doing across Illinois.

You know, and I got to say Illinois 9 is getting a lot of attention obviously. Kat's amazing. But there's also Robert Peters who's getting massively attacked on all sides by all special interests. He's got the trifect of hell coming after him basically. In Illinois 2. In Illinois 2. And in that district, what we see is that the polling there that it's really interesting because you have Illinois 9 with an electorate with way more, you know, people with master's and PhD.

It's like Evanston. Yeah, exactly. And then you have the second district that is a lot lower income. Southside Chicago. You know, less higher rates of education. And the polling there moves much faster after APEC comes in and spends than it does in Illinois' ninth congressional district. But the point that I wanted to get at is that this bundling of money that they do, the reason it can have so much of an impact is because candidates, when they're spending on TV, get candidate rate. That is legally required to be the lowest rate.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my understanding. It has to be the lowest rate of any... Even less than that. Sometimes 10 times as much for SuperPack. But if it's a SuperPack where somebody says, okay, I'm going to give you $100,000 to United for Democracy Project, whatever. That money, those ads cost twice as much if it's an independent expenditure on broadcast or on TV a lot of the time. So that's why it has so much of an impact with that bundling in money,

and it gives the candidates the plausible deniability to be able to be able to. like, oh, I didn't know that this was APEC, which is obviously bullshit, but it gives them that ability because it's not APEC directly giving them that money. And it goes even further. It also puts a dollar value on the secrecy that APEC cherishes because what they could have done is use Democracy Engine to send money directly to Valerie Fushi, for instance. And then she needed the money. And then she could have gotten the preferential ad rates and done exactly how she wanted to do.

She had pledged not to take A-PAC money. And these are these kinds of unbranded fundraisers are the exact things that she apparently rejected. She said, don't do that. That's what I was told. So instead they... Because she was mindful of the backlash. Right. So instead they found these...

That's right. Who then loops it back around to Article 1. And so it's less impactful because it's more expensive to run those ads. But it allows to keep this wall of deniability up. It's an important to note, too, to think about what this means from Jeffrey's position as well. This is, you know, I think, of course, there's the A-PAC role here, as there is in so many of these races around the country, but you also got to put yourself in Jeffrey's shoes. His job is to try to protect his members so that he can keep his majority that he needs to be able to get to continue to be, you know, be speaker of the house.

And I think in combination with the attacks on all of these incumbents, what he's trying to do in this race, what's fascinating to me about it is how late the spending is right now. It came in so late. It didn't come in a month ago when it could have actually had, I think, way more of an impact. It started coming in way later when presumably they saw Paul in that show that Fushi was toast. We're talking about $2.2 million in the final 11 days of the race. That's $200,000 a day. Nothing but these ads on TV.

I think what we're seeing here is Jeffrey is trying to show his other members, look, I'm going to back you so that even if Fushi does lose, they feel like, well, I still want to vote for him because he's going to help protect me. Because once you're in, theoretically, he wants to protect you if you're going to vote for him. What's interesting about this whole dynamic, though, is if there are so many people that end up getting defeated by these incumbent challengers, every one of our incumbent challengers that leaders we deserve is supporting outraised their opponent last quarter. And Justin Pearson outraised his opponent, I think it was nine to one against Steve Cohen. So that is obviously getting their attention, but what will be interesting to see out is two things. One of these incumbents who win, how does Jeffries try to reconcile with them? Right, because he obviously wants to continue being speaker, and how can they use that potentially to?

try to fend off future primary challenges from groups like APAC. Obviously, there's a trade to be made there. But on top of that, it's also a question of with the VRA coming up, with that whole Supreme Court case, how does that end up changing Jeffrey's coalition if a lot of these districts that were created by the Voting Rights Act no longer exist anymore? I just think this is what makes the ALEM race so important because there's now a coalition. I mean, ALEM in 2022 got zero. dollars in outside spending from independent groups. This time she's got 1.5 million. And it's sort of

cobbled together with a bunch of different organizations. Coalition is coming together. Working Families Party, Justice Democrats, this American Priorities Group, Leaders We Deserved. How much do you drop in on a couple of days do you think? So I'm on the hard side, but last I checked in there was about 250,000. Okay. Right. So, you know, there's parity here. There's some competitiveness here that we did not see in the last two cycles. They're really, it was just sort of, you know, lambs to the slaughter, if you're talking about these organizations. And there was an attempt to do political education around this money is coming from APEC and this is what it means or this money is coming from crypto. But now it's, there's still that, but there's also, and we've got your back with some actual firepower here.

So that's why I think this race is so important. And if Alam still prevails despite this last minute rush, it really does change the understanding. and the conception of, you know, what these races are going to look like going forward. Massively. I mean, it's, I think that the entire, the sense of these incumbents have such a sense of entitlement. I think it's actually a huge asset for the progressive movement, ironically, of these challengers, because they are so self-absorbed and obsessed with themselves that they tell themselves, I'm so great at being a member of Congress. I can't be defeated. That's why, that's what results in them getting cocky and not fundraising. That's what results in them going out there and being like, oh, it's fine.

Like, these challengers, I don't really need to worry about them. And then all of a sudden people like Valerie Fushy have an, oh, shit, moment, you know, two weeks before the election or texting. It's a Joe Crowley kind of situation. Exactly. And what we're seeing, too, is because they're so focused on themselves, we've seen people like Steve Cohen compared Justin Pearson's challenge of him to Pearl Harbor, for example.

Right? Then we go out there and we see somebody like Stephen Lynch go out there at a Doge protest, talking about all the doge cuts against VA, theoretically a good thing, right? When somebody heckles him and says that you need to do more to fight back against Donald Trump, he says, I'm the member of Congress, not you, me. If you want to make that decision, you run for Congress.

Leaders we deserve is happy to answer that call and light of fire under the asses of the Democratic establishment to force our party to be better. And the great thing about this moment is, unlike in 2018, when the progressive movement was much more spread out, it was much less coordinated. in many of these races, we are in lock step.

And we have managed to grow enough small dollars support from the movement. And when we do come together, when Justice Dems comes in, when leaders comes in with American priorities comes in, when all these other groups come together and we carefully select these races, we're not setting the precedent like, oh, progressives can't win. We're setting the precedent that when we come together, we win and we are a real serious threat. So you better not take corporate money. You better not take support for APEC or you're going to have a hell of a primary season.

ahead of you. It's going to be an interesting race on Tuesday, that's for sure. Last thing I wanted to ask you guys about is this news that apparently the reason that the Democratic National Committee doesn't want to release this autopsy that they did of the 2024 election is that it found that the Democratic support for the genocide in Gaza had a net negative effect. We don't know, though, whether or not that was considered to be decisive by this autopsy or not because they're not revealing it. So we actually, breaking points and drops, I will put it

together. Petition will put it down at the bottom of the show notes here, just calling on the DNC, just to release this thing. Like, let us see it. Like, we're not telling you what to think about it, but let us see the autopsy, preferably leak it to us first, but just make it make it public. Have you had any meetings with the DNC about this issue or this autopsy? What can you tell us about what you understand about this analysis and why they're keeping it private? What I can tell you is two things. One, Ken Martin campaigned on releasing this. Yeah, and you were his...

And I was the vice chair to him. Like, I know that because I heard him say it a million times at all of the million forms that we had to do when we were running its vice chairs and chairs and everything like that. So this is not something where it's like Ken said, I'm going to do... By the way, they always refuse to call it an autopsy report

because we're not dead yet is what they would say. They called an after-action report. Fine. Give us the after-action report. Right. So that's one thing. It's not like Chair Martin went out there and said, I'm going to do this thing, but it's going to be kept private.

He actually said, I'm going to release this, and we're going to know why we lost. So release it. Don't go out there and claim we're going to do one thing and then not do it. The second thing is, I will tell you, at our first meeting in the building of the DNC, with all of the officers who were elected and everything, we're going through, like, basically some of the most preliminary findings of why we lost the election, common sense things, as you can imagine that we're in there. And one thing that I brought up in there was like, I said, look, I know that you guys

don't want to talk about this almost certainly, but we have to acknowledge what happened with Gaza and the fact that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, especially young people on college campuses, we're losing their minds incredibly, it's set understandably over what was happening, and I know you don't want to talk about it,

but we have to. And I have to believe that if they're actually writing an autopsy report, right, they have to talk about that. There has to be some part of it, and they should release it to have transparency. I mean, we're at rock bottom right now. We just lost a Donald,

Trump for the second time. What else do we have to lose? We might as well give the transparency of our vote to our voters of what actually happened here. But here's the problem. Our party is addicted to losing. Our party, and what I mean by that in particular, is that people like Hakeem Jeffries, people like Chuck Schumer, people, I would argue like Ken Martin as well, would much rather keep basically everything as similar as possible to keep themselves in their own positions of power, whether it's in the Senate or in the House or the DNC or Weber or. routes it is, instead of actually addressing who we are as a party to get us into a governing majority. Because if we want to win back the White House, if we want to win back the House,

if we want to win back the Senate, there is no pathway to doing that without winning back young Americans that historically have voted for Democrats. And if we don't offer them something new and don't just change our messaging, but change who we are and address our courage problem as a party where we're just constantly afraid of our own shadow, we're not going to change that. I mean, you're talking about the iron law of institutions where, you know, you're status within the institution is more important than the status of the institution within the broader ecosystem. You know, I think that the Democratic Party weirdly discounts authenticity and honesty as a virtue and a value that voters might respond to. And this is a perfect example of just we don't want to

be honest with ourselves, let alone honest with the rest of the electorate about our own failings. And it just breeds this notion that you have something to hide. And it becomes a bigger problem than if you just rip the band-aid off and say, yes, this is why we had a problem and we need to be honest about this. Yeah, I mean, just release the damn report. Who knows how much of an impact it really will even have to begin with? But if you're going to say you're going to release it and we know we have a trust problem in the party, just release it. We're already at rock bottom. Just show us what happened, right? much worse can it get? Like how much worse can it get? The only way upward from here? Well, but the obvious problem is that, you know, we have the, uh, presume, uh, if, if Democrats win in

November, Speaker of the House laundering money through a bunch of donors who don't want to have report release. Also, I mean, that's what's going on. A bunch of Republican billionaire donors, too. Right. That's incredible. Exactly. Yeah. That's a lot of, that's a lot of it. We're talking about a lot of the APEC donors are a fascinating moment in the Laura Fine race where she was at a campaign forum and they asked the question, have you taken money from Trump donors? And of course, everybody in the race is a very busy field said no. And Laura Fine very sheep, she goes yes. They she didn't lie. Yeah, good for her. Yeah, honesty. Right. All right, David's great to have you guys by. David Day and Executive Red of American Prospect, David Hogg, with leaders we deserve.

And former ousted vice chair of DNC for coming back with a vengeance. You sure, sure are. Excellent. Well, great to have you guys both here. All right. Thanks. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary.

Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an... MSS officer, no doubt, no question of his life. And that's the unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes

opened its fault of secrets. Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic, Aquarian, visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people

with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius, in her seventh house, spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want to chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast, starting on February 24th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast.

So Ryan, that's sort of a perfect setup for your interview with the candidate herself. Yes. So if you're just coming to this fresh, there's a good conversation that we just had with David Dayan and David Hogg about this race and the dynamics around it and others throughout the country. You can also just listen to this interview. We taped it yesterday. Since we recorded this interview, actually did a lot of more reporting about the money that we talk about in this conversation. But the gist of it is here. This is Nid Alam running in North Carolina's fourth district. The election is this coming Tuesday. Joining us to discuss more of this is Nita Alam, a Durham County commissioner who is up for election in North Carolina's fourth district

this coming Tuesday, if I'm not mistaken. Nita, welcome to breaking points. Thanks for joining us. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. back, Ryan. Yeah. So for for folks who missed our conversation last time we spoke about, you've jumped into a second race against Valerie Fushi, who's now the incumbent, you and her squared off in 2022. In that election, A-PAC through, I don't remember if they did, I think they did it through their main Super PAC, United Democracy Project, put more than $2 million into the race. and they ended up pushing Valerie Fushi passed you by about four points or something like. So a very close race.

How much? Nine. Oh, nine points. I remember being a little bit closer. Nine points is still pretty close for getting more than $2 million dropped on your head down the stretch of the election. Now, so recently, Fushi has been named to this three-person Democratic task force that is charged with crafting what House. democratic policy is supposed to look like when it comes to artificial intelligence. And the way that these kinds of things work is that when a new issue arises, you kind of go

outside of the committee system. I don't know why they even still have committees. Maybe you can tell me if you get back to Congress, if you get to Congress, you can tell me what committees even do, because whenever anything comes up, they create a new committee, even though they've got ones that have been operating, you know, semi-continuously for hundreds of years at this point. And so the three members on that committee are Fushi and they were appointed by Hakeem Jeffries just unilaterally. So it would be Fushi. Ted Liu, who's a progressive in California, almost every California Democrat is pretty friendly to the AI industry. And Josh

Gottheimer, who is a New Jersey Democrat who is kind of notorious for being friendly to, you know, whatever industry it is that he's that he's regulating, whether he's, any of he's on the financial services committee. He's taken more money from banks, hedge funds and private equity than anybody else. He's known as like a almost comically voracious fundraiser. So two industry folks plus then a kind of what you would call it as a normal Democrat, Valerie Fushi. So all of a sudden, Fushi started getting upwards of $700,000 in support from this super PAC that is backed by Anthropic, which presents itself as the AI safety,

super PAC, which kind of goes against, I guess, the AI danger companies, the ones who are a little bit more reckless. Anthropic, whenever you hear anything on the AI world about some of the dangers, it's usually because Anthropic said, hey, look, be careful. Like our AI just did this terrible thing, whereas the other AIs do the terrible thing and don't tell you about it. Godheimer himself used to work for, used to be a Microsoft executive. But there's also a data center fight going on in North Carolina. So can you tell us first, about that. Who was trying to put this data center in the district? What is the status of it? And how relevant and how kind of resonant of an issue is this right now in the district for

your voters, both the county commission level, but also in this race? Yeah, absolutely. And before I answer that, and also just want to note that, like, Anthropic is also known for its collaboration with Palantir on government contracts. with ICE and CBP and even in the United States illegal invasion, invasion into Venezuela. It was anthropic technology that was used. Right. And they recently asked a question to the Pentagon about whether or not their technology was used and appears it was in the kidnapping of Maduro. And they hinted that they don't like that.

And now the Pentagon is saying that they might call anthropic a zing. supply chain risk and not allow it to be used because Anthropic is saying we don't want our technology be used for autonomous, weaponized drones. But they're already partners with Palantir, which is one of the most whatever word you want to use for what Palantir does. So it's kind of late to be drawing lines perhaps, but maybe they're saying it's not anyway. Exactly. So they're close with Palantir, but go ahead. There's so much background here that we have to unpack. Yeah. And And also the fact that two members of this AI task force that was just created in December and Arizona Fushi was appointed like literally right at the same time that we launched our campaign. And now two of the members.

Was it before or after? I think it was like a day or two before. Right. But people knew you were running. Yeah. At that point. And we just to tell people why that's it. Just to tell people why that's interesting.

The reason people often get put on these committees. is because they're in need of fundraising help. And if you put them, say, on the financial services committee, then banks and hedge funds and private equity, they're going to shower them with money. So they always put the vulnerable freshmen and sophomores kind of on that committee. You put somebody on the task force,

they become a magnet then for AI money. So if they're, Fushi raised very little of her own money. So if she needed help in a reelection, putting her on this committee would be an excellent way to signal to the AI world. You need to come in with hundreds of thousands of dollars. and shower her down the stretch. So go ahead.

That's interesting timing. And this lobby and this super PAC jobs in democracy were truly about regulation and protecting the individual consumer and individual person from the dangers of AI. Then why would they not be supporting the candidate in this race myself, who has actually been clear about my stance on national moratorium on AI data centers until we have proper regulations in place so that we don't have this uncontrolled growth that's only benefiting tech billionaires bottom line at the expense of our residents. And like you mentioned, there's one in this district itself in Apex that is being considered and brought forward to the Apex Town

Council. And we don't even know which company, which tech company it is that is going to be running this. The way that they come in is that they have this other company name as the developer. And then they try to get their permits, try to get the approvals, everything. And then after it's built, the tech company, the tech giant, comes in because they know. It's going to be a lot harder for, you know, meta, Google to be coming in and saying like, hey, we're going to have this massive data center that's going to be the size of like multiple super Walmarts coming into your backyard. And residents are terrified. They're coming out and they're speaking up against it. They're saying they don't want this in their backyard. And for our current representative to ignore those

voices and in response, take hundreds of thousands of dollars from the very same industry that her constituents and residents are rallying against is extremely disappointing to them. And we see residents across the district concerned about multiple factors of this data center. We're being told by meta that spending millions of dollars to convince us that these AI data centers are going to create jobs. We know that's false. A.I. is killing thousands of jobs across the country. We're seeing the amount of water usage. They're spending millions of gallons of water every single year, every single day, not even year, every single day to cool these systems. And then Duke Energy is already renegotiating and hiking up our electricity prices as consumers, as residents, to accommodate the infrastructure

needs and capacity for these data centers. Why are those costs? Why are residents having to pay an AI tax? You're a week away from the election, basically. And at least 700,000 is coming from the AI company. There'll be some other super PACs we can talk about at a moment, throwing down again. It looks like a repeat of 2022. How do you get the messages that I've seen so far from this AI super PAC are not in the Democratic line of like, hey, here's why it would be good if you're, we have a data center here and here's why we need good regulations on and federal regulations on AI and this is why Valerie Fushi is good for us and good for you. Like that would be one thing if they were making the case on behalf of their own industry. They're actually, the ads just

seem to be saying nice things about Valerie Fushi. So far, it doesn't seem like they've gone negative on you, but they're saying vote for Valerie Fushi because she's a good, you know, she'll be a good member of Congress. Just kind of raising her popularity and her name identification and not, but not telling that it's an AI company, an AI coalition that is behind her. So how are you doing in getting the message out to people that says, and how do you do this as a candidate in this era, that says, okay, this is AI money. Like whatever they're saying is, that's nice and interesting,

but they have their own agenda and interests here. Are you able to get that message out? Are people following the race close enough that they're picking up what the AI coalition is kind of putting? down here. Yeah, absolutely. And we see this happening with Super PAC spending all across the country is that they never actually run their ads on the issue that they're lobbying for because they know that their issue is unpopular with the average person. We saw this in 2022 with APEC and DMFI. They didn't run any ads about Israel or Palestine because they know that this is not kitchen table issues

that folks are like, yeah, we want more taxpayer dollars to be going to fund war. Just like residents now are not going to say, yes, we want to pay an AI tax to support these data centers. So they have to put messaging out there to just promote candidates that they know are going to be softer and easier on them or be supportive of their causes, even though it's against what their residents want. And the way that we're counteracting this is by we had a press conference on Saturday to call it out. And we actually had one of the leaders of the community members at Apex who came out and spoke at the press conference. And because there were over 300 residents of Way County that signed on to a letter calling on all us candidates in this district. Republican, Democrat, libertarian, everyone to take a pledge to not accept money from the AI lobby. And I'm the only candidate in this race that has taken that pledge.

And in response to over 300 residents. Valerie or Representative Fushi's response has been hey I want to take hundreds of thousands of dollars and they said very clearly at the press conference she said if you take this money we are not going to forget and residents even if you know hopefully she doesn't but if representative Fushi is victorious in this election her residence she is not listening to them she is going completely against what they are asking for right now and so we are messaging making sure that residents know how this AI data center is going to impact them, what the AI tax means, how a moratorium is going to help make sure that there's proper regulations put in place on big tech. And so you have a fairly engaged district, you know, right?

I mean, you have a lot of people who are paying close attention. So maybe it will get out. Like maybe people are engaged enough. Last night, President Trump raised the salient of the issue again. He talked about this in the state of the union. he seems to recognize the political peril that he's in with the amount of money that he's shoveled at AI and the backlash to data centers. And he said, I promise you from now on, you know, these data centers are going to produce their own power. But to me, if you're in a rural area and somebody tells you, hey, we're going to put this gigantic data center in your backyard, people are going to know about that.

And you say, oh, wait, we're going to make it even better. We're going to put a power plant right next to it. people can be like, well, I mean, okay, I'm glad that I'm, that doesn't sound better. I don't want a power plant also. And they're using, like these centers are using these backup diesel generators that are emitting toxic fumes that are polluting our water and airways. And they're happening not just in rural communities. The one in Apex is like literally in the backyard of our residents.

So they're family members that they're scared of how it's going to impact the air quality for their children. How can impact the water quality that is coming into their taps? And so what about APEC? So Valerie Fushi, after getting that two plus million dollars

has been critical of Israel. She endorsed the Back the Bombs Act, which is the Progressive Caucus has built that still allows significant amount of weapons to go to Israel, but does block, did I say back the bombs, block the bombs? still does block, you know, some weapons and is something of a red line for APAC.

Like, your APAC is not somebody who comes in and is, is okay with some nuance on the question. Like, they say they want unconditional aid, and they mean it. And if you don't support unconditional aid, they'll come after you. Tom Malinowski, form a member of Congress, who said there should be some modest conditions on some aid, some military aid to Israel. They spent millions of dollars in New Jersey against him, elect and accidentally, or perhaps, elected a progressive Annalia Mejia instead. Seems like that same super PAC is interested in your race now. What?

Um, is there enough time for them to, you know, impact the race? And what are you seeing from this shadowy super PAC? Now, we're seeing that, you know, money is starting to drop in at the last minute. And it's showing what we've known is that this race is going to be very close. And quite frankly, the establishment and the status quo is scared because they see that the electorate is sick and tired of being told to wait for change, to wait for relief. They're sick and tired of their taxpayer dollars being used to fund endless wars to have to pay an AI tax. This district is working families, just like a majority, vast, vast majority of this country is.

And so these super PACs are dumping in the last minute money because it's a desperate Hail Mary to try to save this seat for the establishment. And we're countering that by making sure that, you know, people know who is behind this money that is coming in, making sure that folks know that the only reason this money is coming in is because they're scared of us as working families, as individuals stepping up and having our voices be heard and taking on these corporate interests and taking on the big tech, the war machine. And unfortunately, we're seeing the same entities and the shableness. shady tactics that were used in New Jersey. They're being used in Illinois coming into this district, the safest blue seat in North Carolina. Are they going negative on you or are they boosting Valerie at this point, the New Jersey A-Pact-looking super PAC? So none of the packs have gone negative on me. Unfortunately, Representative Fushi herself, her campaign ran a negative attack ad yesterday that we had to actually issue our own cease and desist.

And they took it down, which is extremely unusual. Yes, CBS 17 took it down. I don't believe the other, I'm not sure if the other stations have taken it down yet. The representative of who she still has her messaging, false messaging attacking me on her website. As last time I checked it. And, you know. It was a weird false message. The false messages were claiming you didn't file a financial disclosure when you did.

So it's like, it's a strange thing. It's also, it goes to know that there's not much that they can. or anything that they can use against me. She didn't do her paperwork probably. Oh, wait. Actually, she did. Yeah. And if you look at my paperwork, what's terrifying about it is something that's terrifying to all residents, it's full of student debt. And that's what most people in this country are dealing with. And if you are looking at my generation and the next, we are more likely to be living with student debt for the rest of our lives than we are to be able to have a mortgage,

to be able to achieve the American dream that we were raised was possible for. for us. Especially Durham, I would suspect. Now, on the flip side, what makes this race unusual is that you have a shadowy super pack that launched on your side. It appears from the reporting I've been able to do that this is a kind of Bernie Sanders adjacent. It's not from Bernie Sanders himself, but people in the Bernie Sanders kind of aOC wing of the party have raised millions of dollars to do their own super PACs to come in and try to defend

people who are getting hit hit by super PACs from the other direction the last i saw that they had spent a half a million uh or were planning to spend half a million in the race i don't know if they've they've come in with any more um since then but is that um is that help have you have you gotten much of a word on who is that who that is what they want um and is it having an effect on the ground are you noticing that having that cavalry come in and defend you on the other side is is changing people's understanding of the race. Yeah, I mean, I don't know who the individual members are since we don't collaborate with these IE groups, but I've seen their same reporting that you have that they released, I believe it was like last Thursday,

that said that these were individuals who were coming up and supporting candidates who are against endless funding of wars, who stand up and want to take a stance because they're sick and tired of seeing corporations and right-wing special interests. groups like APAC buying seats and electing people who are just going to be yes men for war and corporate tax breaks and cuts instead of for the average working people. And so, and these are groups and donors who, from what I've seen from the reporting, have supported progressive candidates all across the country. And, you know, I'm grateful for the organizations like Justice Democrats, Working Families Party, Leaders We Deserve, Sunrise Movement, who have

been leading the charge in lifting up progressive voices. And it's sad that we unfortunately live in this political system that endless amounts of money have to be spent. And it's sad that in the safest blue seat, our representative is taking money from the same folks who fund Trump. You know, she's running this campaign saying that she's going to take on Trump and his authoritarianism. How are you going to do that when you're accepting and cashing checks from the very same people who put them into office. If we truly want to hold Trump accountable, then we need to hold the corporations and these right-wing billionaires and these running special interest groups that put them into office accountable and get them out of our political systems. Because as long as they have us

and our U.S. government in a chokehold, Trump is not going to be the end of our nightmare. That's just the first step for them. All right. Well, Nidalam County Commissioner running in North Carolina's fourth district, a mail-in voting has already started. The election will be next Tuesday. Is that March 1st? Is that March 4th? Third. So early voting ends Saturday on the 28th. And then Election Day is on March 3rd. All right. Well, we'll be following this and we'll be back in touch on election day or the day after. But thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it, Ryan.

All right. That does it for us. We will be back tomorrow for, I think it's going to be yet another Tommy takeover tomorrow because Emily is unavailable. with Sagar is unavailable. So prepare yourselves, comrades. People come here for both sides. You're going to get the Bolshevik side and the Menshevik side. And we're going to be, you're going to be totally fair. Yeah. All right, guys, have a great day. We'll see you then. See you. See it. I'm Amanda Knox. And in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story.

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