Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Ro Khanna on the DSA and the Prospects of a Potential Presidential Run. Plus, the Gary, Indiana, Blackout and Penn State Drug Ring.

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Van and Rachel chat about the NABJ’s website and its ongoing feud with Stephen A. Smith before catching up on Indiana’s harrowing storms that have left tens of thousands without power. Then they dig into the alleged cocaine ring at one of Penn State’s fraternities and then welcome California Congressman Ro Khanna live in studio. Plus, our hosts give us their thoughts on Young Thug’s interesting comments on fame vs. riches. (00:00) Welcome to Higher Learning (01:05) Stephen A. Smith and NABJ's beef continues (12:37) Indiana left powerless by brutal storm (25:09) 14 charged in alleged drug ring at Penn State (33:13) Ro Khanna joins us in studio (01:41:57) Young Thug has some interesting thoughts Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Producers: Marco Escalante and Jade Whaley Social Producer: Bernard Moore Video Supervision: Jacob Cornett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is up? Highland is on is I Van Lathin Jr. And it's me, Rachel Lynn Lindsay. Can we get into this picture? First, can we talk about this? I'm letting y'all know something right now. I'm letting y'all know something right now. I took too many mushrooms this morning.

I'm sorry. What time did you take them? So. Because I need to understand. How many did you take and what time did you take them? So I took three. You've taken three before. Right, but it's been a while.

Okay. And what time did you take them? How many hours ago? Oh, no. I think I took it like, I think it was like, what, at 845? Have you eaten? Huh?

Have you eaten? I had some coffee. Oh, God. That activates it. Coffee activation? All right, we're in for a ride. Okay, let's just go. Okay, so look.

Let's just go. So, bless this. So I was on the NABJ website. I was on the NABJ website just looking around. Because shout out to the NABJ. So let, okay, so look. So before we get into the, because we talked about the NABJ and, you know, people were upset about, you know, the Stephen A. Smith scene, the take that I had and all that stuff. And then Stephen A. Smith then, as we were doing this, Stephen A. Smith, who had the opportunity after this to go talk to Mr. Farrakhan or Stephen A. Smith could have sat down with Barack and Michelle Obama.

Yeah. Stephen A. Smith could have gone to the black boys and girls club of New Jersey or Southern Miami. He ran right to Shaw Hannity Show. Proving the point. Not proving the point. Almost as if he wanted to prove it. Oh, so like that was his revenge. No, like not even, like you ever, I'm trying to think of an analogy.

It's almost like you want to prove it. Like you is like at this point, it's like, nigger said, fuck it, nigga. Scott up because you know what happens? Sometimes when you push somebody, they go, I'm with my people now. I'm in the club. He's already, he was already there. He already is a regular on Sean Hannity. But I mean, I didn't think of it that way. It could have been like, oh, y'all want to play hardball? Like, I'm going to go to Sean Hannity. But it didn't feel that way because you go to Sean Hannity anyway to talk. That's your friend. You've said that. So it didn't really hit that way. Would you go to Sean Hannity to talk about this?

No, because I wouldn't get this award. I know, but just listen to thumbs down. So look, it's like Bill is my friend. Like he's legitimately my friend. But let's say I got, you know what, I shouldn't say that. I look at him as a friend. You never know. But let's say I got, it's my friend, it's my friend.

Tommy Alter, friend. Whites, I have white friends. You know, they're friends. Let's say I got the thumbs down award from me. in ABJ. Do you think that I would go to talk about that on bills? Which is why it's like... It's just so funny. It's almost like well-deserved.

Did you guys see also that he tucked his chain in? On Hannity? Yeah. No, I didn't. I don't even know what chain he wears. Bring this up. Jay, find that. So when Stephen A. was on the Hannity show, apparently he tucked his chain in.

And somebody, this could be AI. Okay. Maybe they AI removed. So let's not do that. Well, no. No, hold on now because we have to talk about whether or not it's true. Let's say that he did tuck his chain in. Okay. Because he was on another show and he had to chain out.

What show was he on with the chain out? I can't remember. Find the post on threads where the guy was like, why did Stephen A. took his chain in? They're kicking Stephen A ass right now. Well, he's kind of just like, to your point, playing into it. So we did want to have the president of the NABJ on. Aaron Haynes to have the conversation about whether or not the thumbs down award, Stephen A. Smith getting it, whether or not that was appropriate or whatever. Just like the reasoning behind it. And also I would have loved to know like what her reaction is to the response. And she was doing some press around this. But most of the press I saw was before Stephen A's response. So I would love to know kind of what she's thought post his reaction. And also Stephen A intimated.

that he is in a cold war with either the entire NABJ brass or somebody specific in the NABJ. And I'm wondering who that is. Because he goes, you know, when Stephen A talks, you know, sometimes when he talks about talking, he goes, the NABJ, the board of the NABJ, you could look inside of the NABJ. and the superfluous members of the NABJ board that they have,

the 20 or 30 members of that esteemed organization, and you can make your own decision about who might have a problem in the NABJ with Stephen A. Smith. But did you have a problem when I was hosting first take on behalf of the NABJ? Did you have a problem when I put 30 to 45 black people from the NABJ to work. Did you have a problem then?

Six out of ten. Damn. But your hand motions, 10 out of 10. See, I feel like I don't, this is, shout out to Godfrey, shout out to Jay Farrow. I feel like I have it, I have the gene, but not the work. I don't have the gene. I don't think you got it. I don't think you got it.

Rachel, you know what? I saw Godfrey at, what's it called, right after you live? left. Sean Dickerson's Tuesday night comedy. Great. You got to come. Kalika and I went, had a fantastic time. Just like a great vibe.

The comedians were great. I saw a comedian that I went to elementary school with. Oh, really? My boy? Black Ron. No, Black Ron. Black Ron is his name? I fuck with that. Black-ass Ronnie. And he did a fantastic job. Yeah, Camp Patterson

was there. Godfrey was there. some other comedians, and it was good. It was a great vibe. Anyways, yeah, so I'll go out for you there. So, yeah, but anyway, because of all of this, I was on the NABJ website, just like looking around, because NABJ weekend is, you guys, NABJ weekend is like a phenomenally fun weekend.

We really should go. We should go. NABJ weekend is a lot of fun, and I don't think that people understand, a lot of people understand the scale of the interconnectivity of the black journal, community until you go to it. Until you go there and you experience it,

you experience what it's like for people to get their start. Like, you know who's a big NABJ person? Every year. Who? Isaiah? Every year. Isaiah is one of the NABJ because his dad was big. Isaiah who? Isaiah from the ringer.

Oh, nice. Isaiah in that bitch. Isaiah, like I'm with the Sports Task Force. I'm at the NABJ. Isaiah got five or six different pictures at NABJ. He's listening to people on panel. He's part of in, he's going to the party, he's doing an electric slide or whatever the fuck. But so it's an incredibly important, prestigious organization, right? So I go to the NABJ's website and bring the picture up.

And I see this picture. And this picture is hilarious to me. Look at this picture. Hold on for a second. This picture right here. They're wrong for this. Hold on. And this picture is a background.

This isn't even like a gout. Valerie, this is like the background of the website because I'm looking where it says member login, join, convention. Right. But this is a slideshow. So there are two things that are interested about the slideshow. Number one, on this NABJ slideshow,

on this slideshow that plays at the front of the NABJ, the front page of the NABJ, this slide show, they have a picture of Stephen A. Smith doing first take from the NABJ. Oh, do they? That's fuck, bro. I'm fucking, when you go stand on business, You got to lay on it sometimes.

And the NABJ lay it on business. They said, fuck everything that you didn't done. That don't matter. We're holding you accountable. And that's the type of carrying on I fuck with. Agree or disagree. I'll give a fuck because on the front cover of this is Stephen A. Smith doing a first take from the NABJ life.

Fuck that thones down. But look at this picture. Look at these beautiful black women. I'm not sure who these sisters are. And then this lady right here, beautiful as well, holding a plate of food, trying to get back to her seat while somebody takes a piece. That's funny. I'll have that that picture for like 10 minutes. It's the look on her face.

Look at the face. Like, can y'all not take the picture so I can go sit down? Like, I got a job to do. Look, look, she's trying to get back to wherever she's got a plate of food. Nobody cares. Everybody, look at what she's looking at them. Like, take this picture so we can go sit down. That picture just, of all the pictures that are out there

that were on the cover of the NABJ, that one struck me as funny. These sisters look so beautiful. They look so gorgeous. And she looks beautiful, but she also looked like she got something to do with that plate of food in her hand. Get out the way.

She's looking like, I don't have time for this. Can y'all get, the fact that you even saw this, like, what were you doing? So I was on the NABJ? What were you doing it? Just like come across this picture because I'm on the website now. You got to keep clean.

looking to even find this picture. Wait, but look. No, you don't have to keep clicking. The slideshow is going to change. So I'm on the NABJ looking at the board members of the NABJ. Just looking to see if I can glean any information from this. See, what you guys don't understand is that the TMZ is still in there. So it can't be, damn, it's a shot.

It can't be, I can't just have a surface level knowledge of a story. I have to kind of figure out what's behind this. So I'm looking around the NABJ. to see if I can, there's anybody on the board that I recognize that might have an actual issue with Stephen A. Smith. If there's anything around this that kind of explains what he was trying to get at in his comeback to the NABJ. So I'm on there. And the longer I'm on the site, because I got a couple of different tabs open, so the longer I'm on the site, the longer I see the slideshow that is changing. And the slideshow got all of our faves on there, you know,

that are members of the NABJ. And then I see that picture. right there and I'm like, oh, look at this. And then in the background, I see that the lady with the food. And I'm like, that's funny. I got to put that in the show. It's funny. But I couldn't really see anyone that I would know who Stephen A was talking about. Well, my thing is, just say it. Like, you said, you put out the threat.

You basically said it's on now. So why even say all of that? Just say it. You went on Sean Hannity. Just say what the issue is at this point. What do you have to lose? You already got the award. They doubled down on it. it's not going away. It happened. Everybody's talking about it, got their own opinions, haven't really seen that many people who disagree with this.

So at this point, just say it with your chest. Just say it. All right. We'll move on. Are you at all concerned with, like, just broadly. Last thing, are you at all concerned with a body such as the NABJ? That type of centralized cultural. Power.

I fuck it, yeah. Yeah, we talked about that last podcast. Because I thought you brought up a really good point with that. Yeah. When it's specifically organizations, mainly that they go after instead of individuals, especially one that was so. Hey, guys, I'm with y'all. I'm with y'all.

You guys, I'm with y'all. I'm just not, you know, I'm not why y'all little niggas. Let me have my own opinion. I love you guys. I just know that my role in this podcast is really going to be to, like, keep you on track. So let's go on to the next topic. What you mean? Jay.

Let's get into some more serious stuff. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season.

Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always $375. And get Life Brand Pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. Tens of thousands of people in northwest Indiana remained without power Wednesday. More than a week after deadly storms leveled trees and knocked down power lines across the region, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said crews were working nonstop to fix the outages, but 75,000 customers still lacked electricity by late afternoon, mostly in Lake County next to Illinois border. The August 11th storm brought

winds reaching 99 miles per hour, initially leaving roughly 300,000 customers without power. They included more than 20,000 customers in Gary, where residents lined up again at community centers for hot meals and a place to charge their phones. The latest news for Gary wasn't good. full restoration is not expected there until August 25th, Nipsco said. So this is being talked about too because a lot of people are saying this, this isn't getting national coverage, which it did on some sites, but not the attention of like when we talked about the Texas winter storms

and the grid. And that was a story that kept going and going and going. This is something that is still ongoing. They've been without power, as Jades talked about for over a week. There's really, they're predicting end of August, no end in sight. People are standing at shelters, trying to get hot food, trying to charge their phones, their electronics, whatever it may be. And I think it speaks to a bigger issue of what kind of happens to these, you know, well, this is a steel city or these industrial cities that were built on, you know, I mean, Gary was called Magic City at one time. You have these cities that were built, had all these black migrants come from the south to build up the city.

And when the industry failed, everything just kind of went out with it. And these people are still left there. And with the money that left, with the jobs that left, so did the systems and the infrastructure that would be there to protect these smaller towns or these rust belt cities, black rust belt cities, I should say. they aren't equipped to handle a storm like this or something at this type of event and this is what happens and nobody's talking about it and it's really sad.

I mean the bigger issue obviously of the decline of population, the decline of jobs, all of that, but this is a result of that and it's not even getting the coverage you're being talked about in the way that it should. So yeah,

capitalism and American industry decided a long time ago that those people's lives didn't matter. Those industries didn't necessarily fail so much as they reoriented and moved that production elsewhere because it was cheaper. So an economic decision was made about the value of these people's lives and the value of people's lives, black and white, all over the place. And it was decided that it was easier, cheaper, more efficient for those people to be emaciated than for them to be human. I'm sorry to keep staying on this same thing, but it is true.

Now look at where we are. In this situation, the question to Rachel's point is why isn't this being covered? The reason why it's not being covered is because nobody cares when you die. Swelltering, hot, the one time in the year that you need refrigeration and electricity more than anything, where your electrical power grid would be under more stress. where you need good infrastructure, where you need something to be able to protect you from exposure. But nobody cares if you die.

Nobody cares if you don't have power. Nobody cares if you don't have clean water, be it Jackson, be it Flint. Nobody cares if you die. No one cares because that's not power of it. Your humanity and your dignity are not a part of this, blah, blah, blah, Ivan is going to go on and on and on. I'm just trying to make you guys see over and over again that the catastrophe of the viciousness of this American system that we're in right now. You bear the brunt of it. It's yours to bear. The scars are yours. They belong to you. And you will wear them and you will pass them down to your children. And then 30 years from now, 20 years from now, there'll be another podcast or a hologram show or a, or a an AI show when we were replaced about people asking why nobody cares about this, why this is not a big deal.

This is 300,000 people. Storm comes, knocked out their power. We got to it late. Yeah. Look at me. Like, we got to it late. Yeah. And so what I'm saying is that I keep trying to tell you that there's a cost and the cost is being paid by you.

And it's not just being paid by you now. it's always been paid by you. It is your cost to pay. Your power goes out so somebody else can have power. Your grid gets damaged. Your water gets tainted so somebody else could have clean water.

How long are we going to do this? And in this situation right here, what I want is for somebody to really like point me in the direction. I need to be taught and led and what's the best way to help here? I'm certainly, I'm certain that there is mutual aid

that's happening. We're going to be on top of this to make sure that we do whatever we can do to make sure that these people don't become the victims of this thing. Community is supposed to empower and insulate. And it must be us because this system has chosen its loser and its losers are you. It always has been. It's the beginning of it. The first casualty of it was you and your dignity and your humanity and your humanity. and stuff like this continuously happens.

I just don't see it happening in places where everybody is white. You know what? That's actually not true. That's actually not true. What city? Well, I would say that if you looked at McDowell County, West Virginia, the most drug-addicted place in the entire world, and you look at the way those people who are white are affected by that.

I think there's two reasons why those stories don't get more pub. Number one, America does not want to have people associate drug addiction with white people. That's one thing. They don't want that. So those problems get erased and underscore because they'd rather say, oh, look at the problems we have with these blacks that can't stay off drugs. That's one thing. Number two is because those people are poor. And the racial component of this is undeniable.

Sure. But there's also a component of this that just has to do. with the fact that if you don't have in America, then they want to make sure that you don't get. And what you don't get is power, education, water, food, health care, and dignity. I'm going to take a couple of weeks off from this because I could do this every podcast

and everybody would get bored. I don't know if fucking sucks. And I've been everywhere now. Now I'm the anti-capitalist guy and people are going to see me driving around in the car and be like, nigga, you look like you rolling pretty good to me. I get it. I understand the contradiction and all of the stuff and what it is.

But every time I see this, I go, God damn it, now, the only thing that can fix this is community. That's enough. I actually, when I see, when I saw this story, I don't look at it as like, okay, this is overkill and talking about capitalism. To me, the ways that we've been talking about it so far, this is an example of exactly what you've been talking about in the present right now. Like, this is something that you can't deny. when you look at the history, as I was saying, of Gary, to what it was, to where it is now, to the people who built that city up to be what it is so that it could move on to the next thing. And then they're left behind. Nobody cares. It's a forgotten city. And then what happens at the end of the day is a city almost more than 75% with a black population, a medium household income around 38,000 and 30% people living in poverty. And nobody talks about it. When people talk about it, when people talk about, about Gary, Indiana, they talk about the past, they talk about the Jackson's, or they talk about how he used to have the highest per capita murder rate in the country at one time. You don't talk

about, okay, well, what happens when they move on and what's left behind? Gary's not the only example of this. There's a number of cities like that. So I think that this is a prime example to put, let me say this again, I think this is a prime example to point out what exactly happens with capitalism when it's not working the way that they don't want to. it's not working the way that they want it to, this is what happens and they move on. So this is, this is, I think we should continue to talk about the examples of capitalism and how it works against us. We need to point it out. So apparently the gospel truth ministry, which is located at 5829, West 15th Avenue is distributing free food. Gary's website also lists Portage High School

Living Hope Church in Maryville Other locations that are serving free food What we need right now I know somebody from Gary I know the great Freddie Gibbs Gary Phenomenal rapper Funny guy

Super talented As talented Really rapping act Okay that's not my Fred Gibbs But he's talented Okay Like what we can do to run everything up And make sure that there's organizational process

and getting people what they need there. That's very important. But every time I see this, every time I see stuff like this, I go, I just keep hearing from everyone how there's no other way and there's nothing and this is the best system and this system is pure

and some people say it's natural. Like this is the natural way of things to have this type of competition and the people, whatever, whatever. And I'm like, yo, man, Jesus Christ. like the richest place ever. Guy got trillion dollars. Burchard Hathaway, trillion dollar companies.

The concentration of wealth is so out of here now. These people can't get their lights on. OMG. Like they can't get the, the storm knocked out the lights. They can't get the lights back on. This type of infrastructure. It just can't possibly be that great if you can't keep the lights on.

Or if the infrastructure in Texas face, If the infrastructure in Jackson, Mississippi, in Flint, wherever, it can't keep the lights on. Even all of the fucking dumbass comedians that ran down to Austin, you know what they complain about? Is that their lights get knocked off. They complain about that. They rich. Like, all of the idiots that were like, oh, my God, we're going to make this utopia in Texas and all of that stuff like that. Whatever, man.

Like, the ones that ran down there when you hear them bitching, they bitch and moan about the fact that they in Austin and the lights go off for two, three days. That's something I live with in Louisiana. Sometimes you say whatever you want about California very rarely happens, right? But when I was in Louisiana, the fucking lights get knocked off, all that kind of stuff. Now, there's more weather and all of that stuff. I get that. I understand this. I'm journeying on a little bit.

But what I'm saying is if the infrastructure, wherever you are, is so susceptible to inclement weather and it's not resilient enough to be restored, then it's faulty. How could it be when there's so much money around? because it's not your money. The only thing you own in this society is suffering. And that is what you will pass to your children if you don't try something different. Okay, that's enough. I'm sorry.

All right. Skip the next one. Let's go to the Penn State. Oh. All right. Yeah. So 14 people have been charged in an alleged cocaine trafficking operation connected to Penn State, including 13 current or former students and the father of one student.

Prosecutors say the operation centered around the Delta Epsilon and Sigma Chi fraternity houses where it was sold primarily to Penn State students. Authorities alleged some fraternity pledges were made to cut and package cocaine as part of their initiation, which Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday described as a form of indoctrination into the fraternities. Prosecutors identified Penn State graduate Augustino Abbe Tio as the alleged top distributors saying, He and Thomas Robinson regularly regularly traveled to New York and Philadelphia to obtain large quantities of cocaine. Abatio turned himself in Tuesday and was denied bail. Okay, so these, they don't get to have names.

We're going to do them like they would be done if they was the capus. So this is not Augustino-A-Batio. This is A-squared and T-Rob. That's what their names are. This is A-squared and T-Rob. This is who they are. A square, the man at the top, he got the connect, right?

He's going to New York. He's going to Philly. A square got that. T. Rob is the man on the street. T. Rob is the one like in the fucking frat house looking at people going, hey, Mitchell, you're the lookout. Okay? Mitchell, you're the lookout. When we go to Kappa Delta and we get these packs off, you're the one that's going to be outside, making sure.

Freshmen get high last. We're fucking seniors, bro. The freshmen are the one. They get high last. They get the stepped on shit. The pure shit goes to the girls over there at Delta Chi. We love those fucking chicks, man. Fuck you're talking about, bro.

Fucking get out there and fucking serve that shit, dog. Like, this is A squared and T-Rop. Because if this was a... I hate to do this. This is so boring. But if this was the alphas, it would be over. If this was the KAS, if this was the KUs, if this was the Sigma's... Be over for who...

In what way? If this was the signals, y'all might. If it would what? It would be over for what? This would be everywhere. You mean to tell me if the Q's was running packs out the back at fucking Moor House or on the yard, this will be everywhere. This will already be on Netflix. Nigger frack.

No, it wouldn't be on Netflix. They wouldn't even get a deal. It would be only on the news. This will get a Netflix story. This, they're selling the movie rights to. That's better. This, yes. this is going to, we're going to keep hearing about it,

there's going to be a dateline issue, whatever. They're going to make, whoever ratted them out, probably one of these pledges, movie rights. They saw an opportunity there. They say, you know what?

Because the idea that they were cutting and packaging cocaine for their initiation is hilarious. Bro, that's fucking, you know what, you're so right. I was so wrong. How was I so wrong? They're going to get a total,

you're right in a sense, it's a totally different treatment. No, you're right. No, you're right. It's a totally different treatment though that they're going to get. They're going to glorify this. This is going to be seen. They're going to be looked at as like criminal masterminds rather than somebody who is,

who was like trying to harm people with a very powerful drug, a very addictive drug that's taking away from their education. They're not going to be looked at in any kind of way where they're criminals. It's like, wow. They had a successful cocaine ring that they were able to keep on. under wraps for years at Penn State and until one person turned on them. That's how it's going to be. Yeah.

Tune in. This is going to be. 2027. Margaret Qualley, Indy Navarrette. Like the whole fucking crew of young, well, they're late, but like Kit Connor. Everybody has seen X-Men going to be in this movie. You are so right. See how brilliant is.

It's going to make a Molly's ring thing. Because even, like, Molly's game. For white people, even crime is elegant. Even crime is elegant. So Tony Soprano, elegant. It seems elegant. It seems so thought out. It seems so methodical.

Their rules and all of that stuff. We're savages in the jungle, cutting each other, shooting each other and stuff like that. Like Tony Soprano, they were hanging out in the strip club. They were murdering people in the street. Yeah.

Like what is so different from that than the wire? But even crime is elegant. The crime is elegant. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying? And so in this situation, you're totally right. This whole thing is going to be eliminated. It's going on.

There's going to be a doc and a narrative. They're going to hit you with the dock first and then the narrative later. When really, they move in packs. They're like, bro, listen, tell you something, bro. We've got the fucking big game. It's the white out game. So it's Penn State. It's white out fucking Oregon's coming to town.

Ducks. What do ducks love? Ducks love powder. They love fresh powder. So we're going to do twofold here. We're going to hit them with the away stuff. And of course, we're going to serve the people in the fucking home team. It's white out in the fucking stadium.

No, dude, it's fucking white out in Happy Valley. It's white out everywhere. And who's fucking serving? We are! Yeah! That's how A-square was getting down. I mean, even look at the way it's written. He was, the prosecutors identified Penn State graduate, A-squared, will say, as the alleged

top distributor. Top distributor. Not dealer, not trafficker. Doug. It sounds like, I don't know, like some Wall Street. No, it sounds like he fucking went to Berkshire Hathaway. It sounds like he worked for Nabisco. You know what I'm saying?

But like, that's how it is. But look, I fucking, bro, I tell y'all straight up, bro. A square, T. Rob, man. Fuck it. We're going to keep y'all face. We're going to keep your legacy alive. Because it was so funny. I used to have a homeboy that worked on Wall Street.

I just, I don't want to say his name because he's the smartest guy I know. But he was like, we were talking about. we were talking about stop and frisk and he goes, you could easily make stop and frisk work. I was like, what do you mean? He was like, they don't have to stop and frisk random people and niggas in Times Square

and stuff if they want to find drugs. He was like, if they want to find drugs, they can just stop and frisk outside of where I work. Yeah. And he was like legitimately three out of the 10 people that I work with at city, they got coke on him.

He's like, Coke is almost like the pharmaceutical we need to work around the clock. So if you want to stop and frisk and put people in jail, it's coke everywhere. This is like 2007, 2008, 2000, there's coke everywhere.

I'm sure it's the same. And so he's like, if you want to stop it, but he's like, they're not going to do that because that's not who they want because those people have value. But look, A square didn't give a fuck. Everybody at Penn State. This explains why Penn State football.

Penn State is, I mean, why they were so fucked up last year and they started losing. These niggas was, I think A Square had the team on a lot. I want to know how widespread this was throughout the kids. Can you just imagine thinking? You ever see those videos with the white girls and they're dancing around? They hide.

They're on Coke. A square had them going crazy. Allegedly. Like when they girls and they're like, welcome back to school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about. I do wonder how widespread it was, though. But just the idea of them packing.

I can't get it out of my head. I can't get it out of my head. I actually kind of want to see the movie on this, but I don't want them to make any money over it. It's crazy. Actually, I don't. I take that back. That is what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen. We got Congressman Roe Kana on the podcast. He's going to join us after this. We got reset for Ro Kona, man.

I apologize to the audience. Goodbye. Hopefully Van has a reset as well. Okay, guys, back again. Friend of the podcast is joining us, California, Congressman Ro Kana. I'm glad I'm still described as a friend. friend. That's a good thing. Why wouldn't you be a friend?

Of course I haven't. I mean, sometimes you got to, this is friends where I'm from in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Friends don't mean that you never have disagreements. Friends don't even mean that you never have fights. Friends mean that you have trust. That's a good point. So you trust that someone's heart is in the right place, even when you disagree with them, you trust that your good outcome for them is a good outcome for you.

I think right now we think about friends as people who are inside of a political circle. that's insulated from any criticism, but not a friend means, hey, I know that you want the best. That's a huge compliment, you, as a politician. It is a huge problem. Right? Because, Roe. Trust is the most precious commodity right now. Right.

That a lot of people have lost trust. Exactly. The entire system and certainly in politicians, we're about the bottom of the peril when it comes to trust. Right. Well, I don't trust you. As a politician, I trust. As a human being that you have. a vision and that vision aligns with what I think undergirds good humanity.

But as a politician, you got to hold people accountable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's talk about that. Let's start there. Okay, when will you formally announce your run for president? I'm like a decision in Thanksgiving. Okay. And, you know, after that, I'll tell you why then.

First of all, genuinely, we need the focus on the midterms. Right. And can't distract from that. And then after that, it's a very personal decision. You've got to talk to your family and really think, okay, are you ready to do this and put your family through that? And my guess is if the 20 people speculated, you know, half of them will say, yeah, let's do it, and half of them will say maybe it's not the right time. I mean, it's not, I don't think, you know, people just assume, oh, they're just making this stuff up. Like, it's a very, very deeply personal decision to do that and you're putting people through a lot.

What are you basing your decision on? Well, two things. One, I've been going around the country on my economic vision, which is saying, look, I represent. represent a district. It's got a third of the nation's wealth, $20 trillion. The economy is working fine for 989 billionaires. They have 22% of the economy. But what is it doing for the people I grew up with in Bucks County? I have a vision of how we make this economy of the future actually work for every American, every community. And I'm sharing some of my ideas and seeing what the feedback is. And do I have the right

economic vision for our time? That's the political question. And then on a personal question, just as my family are folks ready to do this. It's a grueling process. You get attacked every day. You don't get more popular doing it. You get criticism from morning to night. And am I ready? And so those are the two things.

Economic vision. I know that that's something that you're going around talking about. You describe yourself as a progressive capitalist. We've been talking a lot about capitalism on this show. Right. Explain what that means and how that fits into your economic vision. What it means is I, I believe in entrepreneurship. I believe in small business. I believe in free enterprise. But what I don't

believe in is a free enterprise system that is only enriching billionaires and isn't giving a fair shot to the vast majority of Americans, the people I grew up with in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Let me give you a few statistics. Please. We have 250 billionaires in California. You know what they're worth? They're worth $2.4 trillion, about half the California economy. 250 people. So I've said, okay, let's tax them 5% so every Californian can get health care. So we actually can have people employed in the health care field. You know how much they'd be worth if we'd hit a 5% tax? They'd be worth $2.3 trillion. And yet they are in a primary against me. They're upset about me. They're saying I'm economically illiterate. You know,

have you ever watched the scandal with Kerry Washington's character? Of course. You know, she's got this line. I don't understand people who have everything but still want more. That's how I feel about the California billionaires in this state. You are getting criticism, though, for you wanting to tax. Like, what's your response to that? Is any of it valid? Like, I know Mark Cuban's been very vocal.

Can you speak to that? Well, look, first of all, they go to the edge cases, right? Well, what about the paper billionaire who's worth a billion dollars and just doesn't have liquidity. Like, is that the average person you're concerned about right now when people don't have childcare, they don't have health care, they don't have a job, and you're worrying about the guy who's going to give a billion dollar evaluation and their liquidity?

250 billionaires, 61% of them have liquid stock, so it doesn't even apply to them. For the folks, you know, when you start your billion dollar company and you have a billion dollar evaluation, you come talk to me. For them, they get a deferral. They don't have to pay the tax until they actually have a realization event. But the reality is on one side you've got 250 billionaires. And on the other side, you've got poor kids who don't have health care, millions of Californians who don't have health

care. And these same billionaires who are complaining, they're the ones who caused the problem because half of them supported Trump. And I didn't hear them talking out when he said we're going to cut their taxes to cut Medicaid. They're the ones who cause the whole problem. And we're now saying tax them and they're complaining. And you know why they're coming after me? me because they think it's a betrayal of one of their own because I represent Silicon Valley. I was going to ask you. You know, I went to, I got the fancy degree at University of Chicago economics. I taught at Stanford.

I worked at Wilson Sonsini, tech law firm. Oh, I thought he was one of the normal people. He's talking about taxing billioners. That's why it's under their skin. A lot of other people, they talk about it. They don't come after them. But it's like, okay, this guy's saying this. Now maybe people who feel like this isn't radical.

This is just common sense economics. Well, describe the income inequality or the wealth inequality in your district again? What did you say the numbers were? So one third of the nation's wealth is in my district. The whole stock market is worth about $70 trillion in America. We have about $20 to $25 trillion in a 50-mile radius. Apple, Google, Tesla, Broadcom, Nvidia, all over a trillion-dollar companies. And by the way, we're going to get a sixth trillion-dollar company, AMD.

It's around $800 billion. Yeah. And right outside my district is Anthropic, which is going to be a two to three trillion when they go. These are all the heavy hitters. All the heavy hitters. My question for you is, how long have you been in Congress? Ten years. Okay.

So if I'm an average American, why would I trust you and your economic vision when this inequality is best summed up, like you're the home of it in your district? Well, it's ballooned and exploded on your watch and a point. place where you're supposed to protect me? Because I've been calling and sounding the alarm since 2016, since I got to Congress. I've been going to deindustrialized communities. Why deindustriized communities? Because I grew up in Pennsylvania where the steel mill shut down. I've been going to Johnstown.

I've been going to Milwaukee. I've been going to Lourdestown. I've been going down south to places like Orangeburg. And I've been saying you can't have all the wealth in one place. I ran saying we've got to get Silicon Valley's wealth, not just working. working for Silicon Valley, but working across America. And I've been saying tax this wealth, not now. I've been saying it since 2016 and 2020 when I supported Bernie Sanders.

I've been calling for an internet bill of rights, saying that people should own their own data. I have been calling for antitrust and standing up to tech billionaires. Now, you're saying, well, I didn't get it done. Okay, I'm one person out of 435 people, and Bernie lost twice. But if you look at my record, I have been asking. advocating that the wealth concentration shouldn't be taking place here. And what my argument is going to be is I know these people. I've stood up to these people.

You have to understand the future economy to be able to stand up to these folks and be able to have an economic vision for everyone else. And I've taken small steps. You know, I did partnerships with HBCUs, with Claflin, with Benedict College, with South Carolina State, with 34 HBCUs. We got NVIDIA and Google to create, $5,000 scholarships, nine-month course, $70,000 to $80,000 jobs. We've got a few hundred people.

It's not life-changing, but we've got a few hundred people. We've got to scale that with HSIs, Hispanic Serving Institutes, HBCUs, public colleges. Why are we not giving more people access, first of all, to the wealth generation of the modern economy? I've been working on that for 10 years, not now. And then secondly, why don't we have a tax on these billionaires? You know what $4 trillion would do? 5% tax in $9.89 billion, who are worth 22% of our economy.

$4 trillion you could get free college in America. You could get free child care in America. You could get Medicare. You could get all of Medicare for all. I'm for Medicare for all, but you could get Medicare expanded to 50. That's $200 billion, basically. You could do all of that.

I mean, you could do all of that now. But you could do all of that right now, if priorities were different. I'll say something about those HBCUs. Those HBCUs don't necessarily need the philanthropy of Invidio. What they need is a system where most of those are land grant universities, where they're not intentionally underfunded for money that they should have from the government, right? The government is robbing HBCUs because the systems in place to make sure that HBCUs are funded

are being intentionally dismantled by people who don't want to see. black kids learn. So that's a systemic issue that really should be dealt with rather invidia or AMD or anthropic or anybody else gets involved. But let me stay here for one second. Progressive capitalism, describe what that is because anybody that was skeptical about why things haven't changed in your district would say that they haven't changed because your overall outlook is in league with the people that control the resources of that district. Right. So like if you describe yourself as a capitalist, Well, under you, the capitalist will always win because you believe in that.

So let me answer both points. On the HBCU, as you're absolutely right, in terms of the endowments and the funding, right, if you look at the HBCUs that produced W.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King and Tony Morrison and all of these great scientists and leaders, you would think they would be funded, just in terms of their contribution to American society. And yet you look at the endowments of all of the hundred people. 103 HBCUs. $9 million at Southern University where I went.

Wow. $9 million. Even if you include Moore House and Howard, you know, you're looking at an endowment complexively of about $2 to $3 billion, one-tenth of just Stanford, all the HBCUs. So you're absolutely right that the solution to it is not the charity of NVIDIA or Google. The solution to it is how about we fund institutions that have produced some of our greatest leaders, not because we're doing it because it's good

for African Americans, because it's good for America, because these are produced some of the geniuses of America. It's good for African Americans. It has to be okay to say that. It's good. I believe we should do things that it's good for African Americans, but I'm saying it's on its merits has overproduced talent

compared to the funding. But you still need Nvidia and Google, why? Because even if you had equality of funding, you have networks of exclusion. These folks, They graduate Stanford. They graduate Harvard. They graduate Yale where I went or University of Chicago.

And they're not looking at the talent at the HBCUs. Invidia going to HBCUs is not charity. It's saying there is talent in these universities that you are not looking at, that you are not funding. Why am I passionate about this? Because the only place Indian Americans were hired after the 1965 Immigration Act, when they came here, Stanford and Harvard in Hiram, they were hired at HBCUs. And to this day, there are a disproportionate amount of Indian faculty at HBCUs because the HBCUs took a shot on Indian Americans.

And so now that the Indian American community is doing well in Silicon Valley, I say, how about we look for the talent at HBCUs? So it's not in lieu of the funding. It is to look for talent. Part of the challenge. Yeah. Now, on your broader question of why should people trust someone saying that they still believe in free enterprise? Look, there are a lot of people. capitalism. Capitalism. Well, capitalism properly defined, in my view, is a free enterprise that works for people who work. Right now, the problem is that the capital class has accumulated all of this wealth, and it's not working for people who just work. So we need a change. Why should capital gains be taxed at less than people who are firefighters or teachers who work for a living? On my view, you should have capital gains.

and ordinary income be taxed at the same rate. You need to tax all this wealth. Not because I begrudge people who made a billion dollars. It's not punitive. But if you get a tax of work, tax a wealth. You tax a wealth. So that's not working. Why did we allow in this country all this wealth to be accumulated

and people not be paid a living wage? They're not being paid $25. You work at Amazon. You won the lottery in some ways, right? You're working at a trillion-dollar company, and you still can't make enough to, buy a house or to support your family, you've got to rely on food stamps, you've got to rely on housing assistance. How is that fair? So the problem is not that we have a capitalist system of

free enterprise, which is private property. Like I believe in freedom. I believe if someone wants to start a business, they should be able to start a business. You don't have to go to the government to start a business. You want to do something as an artist. You want to build something fine. But it has to be fair. And right now the problem is that people who are working in this system, are not getting enough to support their family, to get a house, to be able to afford their health care bills. That's why I believe we need America's next new deal. And when I say this, I understand that the New Deal excluded a lot of the Black South with domestic workers and agriculture workers. So it has to be an inclusive new deal.

They demanded that. They demanded that. They demanded it. And you know history. I mean, A. Philip Randolph and Guy Houston were criticizing FDR, saying, no, you got to have the hospitality. workers included. You've got to have the agriculture workers included. You got to have the domestic workers included. FDR said, no, I can't do it. And then Randolph got FDR to say, well, okay, at least if you're going to industrialize America on weapons, we got to hire black people. And that was the

compromise. But Houston and Randolph and Bayer Rustin were very critical of FDR. But that doesn't mean that we throw out the basic principle that FDR was for, which is that the economy has to work for everyone. So it's pretty simple. You tax these billionaires, the economic royalists of our time, and you finally have single-payer health care, Medicare for all, you finally have free child care, you finally do free public college, you give people a $25 living wage, you have a new economic bargain in this country. And if you don't do it, this system is going to break because of what you say. People are just going to say the system isn't working for us. I think the question for me is, okay, so going back to your district, you say you know,

these people. You've been trying to do this for 10 years. You're only one person that can do it. How do people know? I think the question I would think if I'm listening to you is, okay, so how do we stop it? How do we regulate it? All these ideas are great. You talk about this new deal, but what is it actually going to take to make it happen? We understand what the problem is. We understand who holds the wealth. We understand who doesn't. But how do we actually realize the things that you were talking about? What would be the thing with that? We've got to elect bold progressives to the House and the Senate and to the presidency. We're actually going to stand not just for platitudes, but for a concrete policy agenda.

And to me, that is start with taxing the billionaires, because that's where you're going to get revenue. Start with ending these foreign wars. You know, no wars in Iran. For the cost of the war in Iran, we could have had free child care, free college. We'll get into the broader issue of morality. I don't want to say for no aid to Israel, but I'm not going to pretend that that $3 billion is going to pay for everything else. I think we need to have no aid to Israel on moral reasons. But the no wars would pay for a lot of this and then start to get votes.

I mean, I don't understand why if we take the House of Representatives, we wouldn't have a vote on Medicare for all, on free child care, on free public college. Start to have votes and actually run on a progressive agenda. Well, I mean, Hakeem Jeffrey said he wouldn't vote for Medicare for all. No, I respectfully disagree with them. I mean, I'm in the Congress. I understand the role. I believe once we take back the House, we need to have votes on Medicare for all. We need to have votes on free child care.

We need to build and we need people if they come on here, they say, oh, we need a bold agenda. We need a transformational agenda. And calling for boldness without the specifics is just an exercise in branding. Yeah. I am no interest in just branding. I have no interest in messaging. I want the substance. I want the freedom budget that A. Philip Randolph, Bair, Rustin, and Dr. King fought for.

That's not people say, oh, this is white populism, prairie populism. No, actually, it came from the black freedom struggle. The most progressive policies came out of that freedom budget. Look at what they wanted. They wanted free health care for everyone, single pair. They wanted a jobs program, a federal jobs program with good wages. They were against militarism. They were against the Vietnam War and the defense budgets.

Reverend Jackson ran on a lot of that. Why is that never happened? And so you get all these politicians that are saying, I want transformation. Are you going to be for the freedom budget? Are you going to be for those principles? Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk.

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Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Let me ask you this, too. You believe in AI. You're a defender of AI. Well, no, I've been very critical. In regulation, right? Regulation, but also, yeah.

I mean, I've been for the, I just had a town hall in Vegas where we were for the workers over AI. So I have said, have a pause on the data centers. Okay. I have said no data centers in residential communities or farmland. Okay. I have said that you tax the AI and tax the robots because they shouldn't be taking jobs. I've gotten in a disagreement with governor in my state and governors in other states saying that trucks should have truck drivers and being for teamsters over Tesla.

That's been vetoed twice in this state. I mean, we need to be standing and protecting work in this country. That's what I was going to ask you. So you believe in, so based off of what you just said, you believe in the expansion of AI and data centers if there is some sort of regulation. or communities vote to include them within their community? I am for a community, they'm not being shoved down the throats of communities, so communities can say no,

but regardless, I'm for a ban on them in residential communities and farmland. There's plenty of space in this country. There are plenty of de-industrialized places and industrial sites. We don't need to put them in residential communities, taking people's water, driving up electricity costs. Now, if a community is fine with it, and it's away from the residential, community where it's not going to affect the water or prices, then they should have the right

to say that. But there have got to be terms of agreement. Where are these tech companies? Are they investing in the schools? Are they investing in the communities? Are they investing in job creation? They say, oh, we created a data center and created jobs. Great.

But what else are you doing? And so it's got to be a reciprocal agreement. And I know what problem people have right now is that they see all the wealth piling up in the hands of folks in my district. And these data centers are taking. They're taking the water. They're taking the land. And the communities aren't

benefiting. And many times these governors have fast tracked it to just shove them down the throats of communities. Another thing that people see is that no one that seems to be pro-AI can make a compelling case about how it increases human productivity and actually helps people.

It seems as if what's happening is two things. Number one, an economic Ponzi scheme at the top of our economy between these companies' alphabet, well, like whatever you want to name, right, to where they're working with each other. And that's not enriching people, right? There are actually almost two economies, one which is failing and the other one, which is based upon this almost just increasingly speculative bubble that is bound to burst. Right. So that's an economic play around that you can't play on, play in, shall I say. And then even if it worked, even if it worked, what you would get would be like just,

almost dystopian levels of automation that would cost you your job. So people are like, why? Like what's the point? Like, okay, so I'm already working for a wage that my government refuses to guarantee they won't go up on a minimum wage because that hurts the capital's class too much. And my promise is a data center that makes my life worse in service of automation for my job that will then render me worthless in this capitalist society. So the whole question would be, what's the fucking point in the first place? Like, why?

Why would anybody be pro-A-I? Well, you're right. I mean, I am, that's why I've said. Our first priority should be to defend the jobs. That's why we should have regulations saying trucks should have truck drivers, that employees should have bargaining about how the technology is used. Now, if the technology is used to enhance medicine or workers, Can we use AI to help discover some cure for cancers?

Sure, for rare diseases. Do I use chat GPT sometimes? Because you may ask me a question on HBCUs, and I was like, I forgot. I've been thinking to myself, what is the total endowment? Is it $2 billion or $4 billion? Probably when I go out, I'll put it in chat GPT, I'll get an answer. Fine. But it's not eliminating my job.

And the reason that AI is being eliminating jobs is who controls the AI. That's the question. Right now, the control of AIs in the hands of these tech billionaires, and they're out there telling us what they want to do. We're not guessing. They're saying we want 30, 40 percent unemployment. And what I'm saying is that the decisions of AI needs to be democratic. It should be the workers saying, okay, you want to do AI?

Well, you're not going to be able to replace workers with it. You want to do technology that's going to make our life easier. Fine. But we get more free hours. We get a share in the profits. And you better not be laying off anyone, and that needs to be regulation. But I think that you need people who are going to be willing to stand up to these tech billionaires who understand the technology and are going to say, but we're on the side of the workers.

And that's, you know, my argument of what I've been doing in Silicon Valley. They ran someone against me. They put up a million dollars and ran someone against me because I called to tax them because I am not seen as friendly towards AI. And it's not that I'm an anti-technology. I just want to make sure that the technology is benefiting workers and families and not benefiting the capital class. Broad question, because I have to ask you this and then we can move off this because we could do the capitalism thing. I'm in a mode right now.

We can do the capitalism thing. Are you a Democratic socialist or no? Yeah. You are. Yeah. I'm actually, I'm almost past that. At this point, I just, I cannot see any reason for anyone to espouse for this late state capitalism that we're in. right now. But let me ask you this, but Democratic Socialism, do you mean social democracy,

or do you mean, which is basically people can still have businesses, they can still have private enterprise, but we have a strong social safety net of health care, child care, public education, or do you really mean that we collectively should own all of the means of production in the country? I'll the former. So, I'll tell you one thing. I actually think that that question is bullshit. Okay. I'll tell you why. So, two reasons. So let's start, just so we don't give people too much, let's just nibble at dignity, since

dignity is impossible. Let's nibble at dignity. Let's say healthcare, education, housing and hunger. Let's just say those things, right? Let's just nibble at it. Because I think most Americans could agree on that. As far as your life not being extracted for the wealth of a thousand people in the country, it doesn't seem like we can get to that right now.

And the reason why it doesn't seem like we could get to that, I mean this with affection, is because it seems like you guys are them. So if you are in office and you're calling yourself a capitalist, well, then you, by definition, align with the capitalist class. and there is only certain ways to control a wolf. Like a wolf hunts, a wolf eats, a wolf gets blood on its fangs. And so you can try to make a wolf sort of look for different prey or try to fill it or try to like. But the nature of the system that we're in right now is to extract wealth and dignity out of people

and leave them scrounging around for their dignity in other places. What I would want in a perfect world, I understand this, would be there to be humanist, like, actual candidates. Candidates that think, okay, I'd fight the capitalist class because I care more about a hungry child than I do about free enterprise. That we're not going to always lead when we have these conversations about what's good for business, because what's good for business is good for us. That's obviously a lie. That has been, that is a, that's a historical. That's a lot. Now, what I would say is there was a time when that was true, where productivity, living

standards, all of those things were increased. But now we're looking at that actually going backwards. The life expectancy changing, infant mortality changing, health declining. We're getting stupider, right? We're less educated than we've ever been. Almost everything that has to do with our personal dignity, late state capitalism, is like robbing us of that, but our politicians are still avowed capitalists. It seems like there's nobody actually advocating for us. Well, I hear a lot of that. First of all, I'm not for the capitalist

system that is there today. And I'm saying that when you look at a free enterprise system, it needs to have spheres that are totally apart from it. Healthcare is one of those areas. This is why I'm for Medicare for all. I think we've got to get. rid of the profit system when it comes to people's health. So you shouldn't have people's cancer, people's heart disease commodified and having people making hundreds of millions or billions of dollars or insurance executives. We should have health care as a human right. And that should be outside the system of capitalism. When it comes to making sure that people have education, that should be outside this system of capitalism for public colleges.

So it's a mixed economy. But what I fundamentally believe is actually that would long term be good for America's economy and economic growth. It just won't be great for the small capital class. And it would have broad-based economic prosperity. And we had that kind of a capitalistic system. We were moving towards it in the 1950s and 1960s, not for, for everyone. Obviously, there was racial segregation and there was discrimination against immigration, immigrants, but we should have that kind of a broad-based enterprise system where

certain things are beyond the profit motive. One last question for me on AI. If the people who created AI and control AI, the goal for them was to create, have productivity that's cheaper and faster, then how is it that we're going to get them to now use this tool for the complete opposite thing that they never intended to do? Doesn't it feel impossible? Well, it's impossible if we don't regulate it and we don't give workers control over it and we don't have the right tax policy, right? So one thing we should do is tax AI, tax robots. Right now, you want to hire someone, you bring someone on here. You've got to pay the their health care insurance and you got to pay their payroll tax. But if you say, no, I just

want chat GPT to do it, you don't have to pay a tax on bringing on a chat bot. So I'd say tax that chat bot so that you actually put a human being on the level. But one of the things, I just went on a bipartisan delegation to see the Pope. He has the, I'm of Hindu faith, he's Catholic, but it doesn't matter what your religion is. He has written the most comprehensive humanistic policy on AI of any world leader. I mean, our president doesn't read or write, so it's not the American president. But the Pope has. And he talks about your exact point.

He says we cannot allow efficiency to be the north star of humanity. And right now, what the AI companies, it's all about efficiency. How do we eliminate these jobs? How do we maximize our profit? No, we need a different mindset. How does the tools of technology AI solve problems like cancer and medical research? How does it help workers become more productive? And this is the lesson of the Industrial Revolution.

In the beginning 60 years of the Industrial Revolution, it was hurting workers. They made conditions worse because the whole goal was eliminate workers. And then they had progressive reforms. And they said, no, what we need to do is unions. You have unions. We need to make sure we're not anti-technology. we just need to make sure that the workers are benefiting from this, having less hours, having overtime pay, having safer worker conditions.

And so what we need to do is have a pro-worker AI, a pro-worker use of this technology. Ultimately, you can't blame, in my view, just the technology. You've got to blame the sources of power. And the power right now is in the capital class. So let's move off of this. Now, let me ask you a question directly. Are you woke?

Would you describe yourself as woke? Yes. Okay. What does woke mean to Rochana? Woke means understanding American history with a lens of what has happened to people who are black or brown in America. Gay? Gay, marginalized. Trans.

So when I say. When I learned history in 10th grade, my favorite teacher, Mr. Longo, and I learned about the New Deal, I did not learn that the New Deal, excluded people who were agricultural workers or domestic workers. Not because my teacher was racist, not because my teacher wasn't trying to do a good job, because that's not the history I learned. I became woke when I recognized that the history I had been taught was not the complete picture. I woke up to the fuller picture. That's what I think woke means. It's to have your eyes opened to your blind spots of the stories that we've been told and to understand voices that you may not have accounted for.

Now, give me a criticism of that endeavor that you witnessed. either socially or culturally, because I completely agree with you. The thing that connects me, even more so, because Rachel's from Dallas, I'm from Louisiana. The thing that connects me to that is the amount of knowledge that I've put in my head. And I've seen just from C to shining C, marginalized groups, minority groups, immigrant groups, all come together and buying their culture. together to establish them as citizens in this country. And a lot of people don't tell those stories because the dominating narrative keeps those people in almost perpetual servitude in America.

But if you know that some of these things were intentional, then you understand how people have tried to overcome them. Now, we've tried to do that. For you, has there been any overreach in that in the last? 10 or 15 years that lends people to be able to weaponize that word as something negative. Yeah. I mean, I believe that, you know, if defund the police, in my view, was an overreach in that. Not, do I believe that there is racial profiling in police departments?

Yes. Do I believe that there's police brutality? Yes. Do I believe we need to understand that what's happening with ICE today and the brutality we're seeing as immigrants is something that black Americans have faced for generations because of law enforcement used against them? Yes. Does that mean that we don't need police?

No, that doesn't mean that. We still need police. So one can look at things that, in my view, went too far, but not reject the idea of being awake to the realities of historical injustice. Immigration may be in other area. You can believe that we need secure borders. You can believe that we need secure borders, but still be horrified with what's happening to folks who are undocumented, who are being killed like Lorenzo Salgado, 52-year-old father of three young kids shot to death for no reason, even though he was a construction worker being in this country. So I think that the problem with this is we can say that there are specific policies where progressive ideas may have gone too far.

We don't have to reject the concept of understanding that race matters and understanding that they're blind spots about race. And the reason we shouldn't back away from that is if we back away from that, we're giving a permission structure to what Donald Trump and others want, which is to erase black history, to erase immigrant history, to say, you know, let's just whitewash all of this and tell a lie about our country. That's a great answer. I'm going to attack you on defund the police in a second. Well, I agree more with you with what you're saying. Oh, daddy.

I do. I do. If Democrats, because I, you taught, we just, he had to ask the question about defunding the police and your opinion on it. And obviously there's mixed messaging within the party. Yeah. As far as defunding, not defunding, you talked about policy, which is the part, or like not abandoning what the issue is, which is what I agree with. But it seems like there's this disconnect. I brought up Hakeem Jeffries. He's like, doesn't believe in Medicare for all.

he's like that's not that's not the issue that he's behind or he's pushing forward if democrats do retake congress in the fall what is the first bill that you feel like is worth um fighting for or for passing because it does seem like i mean he's he would be the leader it just there's you're not on the same page and i believe you said something along the lines of most people most democrats are for this so what would be the thing that you would push forward if there is this disconnect Well, look, I'm going to fight with everything I have to get to the caucus to the point where we have votes on Medicare for all and we have hearings on Medicare for all. So I'm not giving up on that. But I would say right out of the gate, we should restore the Medicaid funding. We should increase the taxes on the very wealthy to restore the funding of Medicaid, which is crippling rural hospitals, taking away funding from working class and poor Americans. We should increase the living wage. I believe it's got to. to go up to $25 an hour by 2032. And there's a bill, Anna Lillia, has to do that.

But push at least to get that wage increased. We should get paid family leave. We still don't have paid family leave in this country. So those are a few things we should do right away. One of the things I hate in the political conversation is they say, well, are you going to hold the Trump administration accountable or are you going to pass an agenda to improve the lives of the country? Why can't we do both?

Why can't we subpoena the people who doge this nation and hold the ICE officers who are killing Americans and undocumented immigrants accountable and hold the corruption accountable and have hearings in the Judiciary Committee and Oversight Committee and every day pass an agenda of what we're going to do to help the American people? It's not either or. In fact, the corruption crisis is part of the reason we have an affordability crisis. So we've got to do both. We've got to hold the corruption accountable. and we've got to pass bills every day that we're saying we're going to improve the lives of Americans. So you described, so I think this happens a lot of times when people are talking about particularly funding the police because you say that that was an overreach. I actually understand what you mean in terms of the way that sounds to a lot of Americans.

But I think underneath what happened is why it feels like an overreach, because you described abolishing the police. So like when you say defund the police, what people then think is, okay, no police. Right. Right. That is not what that is. Right. So like what defunding the police is, as I'm looking right here now, we have a $3.5 billion police budget in Los Angeles. We have around an $800 million budget for homelessness, right?

So what people, when people say defund the police, what they're talking about is maybe the police don't need tanks. And maybe the police don't need, maybe they can go with a car. couple of less helicopters or specialized Israeli training or like whatever that is, right, to take some of that money and then either establish things that are directly resulting in public safety. Shout out to Philip McHarris, by the way, who is younger to me, but one of my big homies on this issue. Now, Philip's an abolitionist.

So he would say abolish the police perhaps. But what defunding the police does is it reinvest into a community, right? And when you reinvest into that community, you get better outcomes for that. community and you get less negative outcomes from that community being over policed. Now, abolishing the police is like Scarlet Witch with the mutants. No more police. Yeah. Right?

So I think a lot of times in mainstream political discussions, defunding the police was described as abolishing the police, which is the reason why so many people recoiled from it. So many people said, well, we need the police. Nobody's saying, get rid of all the police except for my abolishment people and they know who they are, right? What people were saying was that these budgets have gone crazy. And at the other end of these budgets, what we see is a police department that is not

interested in public safety. They're highly militarized and they're interested in what it seems more like this almost fascistic order, right? And when you go, when you run afoul of that, they fucking kill you. And so might we live in a world where we could train or imagine. a different modality of public safety that wasn't that. That's defunding. Abolishing is we don't need to police anymore.

Can I just say that too, though, that I think that to your point with what Van acknowledged it, like what you were saying, is that the term, not even just in political discussions or conversations like this, had a spectrum, and that became a problem. There were people who would say, defund the police, get rid of the police, like just in casually talking. The way you explained it, absolutely right. the way it went as far as people, whether they were protesting, not everybody, but just some people, it became a term that they just threw out there that had a variety of meetings, which is where

the messaging got lost in it all. You're right. That is the terminology of it. Fact. But this is the reason why, this is the reason why, Comrade, Rachel. This is like, I'm moving more left. This is the reason why we would need the Rokanas, the Kamala Harris. and the people like that to make sure that we're not taking a lot of these activists and people that we trust in our communities and letting the right use them as punching bags for saying something that they did not say.

Well, let me say a couple of things. First of all, it's not my place in any way to police the language of activists. Right. And what I don't want our party to do, which is why I said I am woke and I respect activists is to punch the activists who are not in office, who don't have a title, who are doing this simply because they care about their community. We shouldn't be punching them to kind of show that, oh, we're reasonable and winning votes. And I have no tolerance for that. I have a different role in my view. I got to take any policy that there is and convince people in my district, a majority of my district, that this is common sense policy. So if I use a different, and what I would say in my district's view, a precise way of how I talk about it. If I say, look, we need to make sure that police don't have militarized like equipment. We need to make sure that police aren't acting in rogue's ways like you see now ice acting. We need to make sure that when there is someone who is homeless or has a mental health issue,

the first interaction may be a community-oriented intervention rather than an escalatory intervention. And in some cases, that may mean that actually you have more police officers of different kinds, or it may mean that you have different specialties. And we're talking about what kind of police force is most just and best for public. safety. And if I say it that way, I'm probably going to build more consensus. That doesn't mean that I go and say, well, look at that radical who's out there using a different language, because they may mean what you're saying. But we have different roles. And I think that the obligation of a politician is to try to articulate in a way that's common sense, but also to understand that what

the activists are doing is constructive to fighting for. for a more just society. And so where I really disagree with some of my colleagues is when they punch the left and they kind of denigrate the left. And they do this either with the Democratic Socialists or the people of the Black Lives Matter and they almost do that to show that they're reasonable.

You can show your reasonable just by who you're, how you talk. That's the point. Because I was like, oh, are they write letters and get people to sign it? That's the point. And that goes back to the question I was asking you about pushing things forward if the Democrats do take over Congress in the fall, which we hope they do, pushing things forward.

When you say that they're saying things to sound, it's like, who are you saying it for? Is it for the right? Is it for the moderate? Is it for the establishment? Rather than what are the things that need to get done in order for the American people to feel better? That they can have better lives in this country. And that's the fear I have when I hear the potential leaders.

say, I don't want this. Well, if majority of Democrats are saying that they do, then are we going to be able to move these things forward or are we split as a party? Are we going to write another letter and have other people sign it against, you know, the more progressive side of the left? I don't know. This is a fear of mine. Well, sometimes I think about what our platform should be. I have this radical idea. Someone should just run on, I'm going to do what Democrats want. I'm going to do what Americans want, right? They're telling us pretty clearly that they want to tax the billionaires. They don't want another dollar to Israel. They want an end to this genocide. They want Medicare for all. They want free college. This is not, this is not controversial.

This is what all the numbers are telling us. And yet somehow we have an ossified party infrastructure that these simple ideas that people want are not getting done. And I think that's why you see the anger. Look, I think the Democrats are going to win the House. I think we've got a great chance of winning the Senate, but we better ever act together. Right. Because if we just get in there and our ineffectual winning does not mean they trust us. They just dislike the other guys. But they do not trust us yet.

They want to see what are we going to deliver. And then if they give us the White House, they'll give us two years. And if we don't deliver, you're going to see a worse radical right-wing populism in 2030 and 2032. It's so interesting. You say that political had an article that came out. I don't know if it's today or yesterday, about the resistance in that, like what happened with Florida, so maybe it was today, about how they're pushing back. They're not voting for it. That was Trump 1.0. Now, in Trump's second term, people don't want you to just be a part of the resistance or you became a star because you're anti-Trump.

It's what are you actually going to do for us, which is why the DSA's message is becoming so powerful. I mean, it's populism. It's what happened on the other side years ago. Yeah, and look, people want you to take risk. You don't want of my liberating qualities because people said, oh, are you? you're going to run for president? I was very blunt. I said, I'm considering it.

But, like, I was not supposed to get to Congress. I'm an Indian-American guy of Hindu faith. When I was doing an internship after law school, they said, you won't get elected to anything. It was before Barack Obama. And if I run, you know, I know it's an underdog effort, but I'll say what I believe, you know, and I'll let the chips fall where they may. And it's kind of liberating when you don't have the expectations that you're supposed to be in these offices.

because you can just let it rip. You can say what you believe. And my view is, okay, if I don't win, I'll make a moral contribution to the country in terms of my ideas. And if it's great, you win. And I just think that we need more of that spirit where, and I think what burdens the Democratic parties, we're so afraid of losing. We're so afraid of saying something that's going to offend people. And that's what I think people mean by this authenticity.

It's not like, hey, you know, do you know the latest hip-hop? artist. Like, no, I don't know the latest hip hop artist probably. It's, are you willing to stand for something? And are you willing to lose over that? You know what they call that where I'm from? What? They call that being pussy. That's what it called, like, how you, mushrooms, it's kind of mushrooms. Like, how, like, how you, it's like, how can you not, that's your job. Like, your job. like your job your job is to take your truth and making it to policy for people's lives

people are begging you to do that and you're scared to do it what the fuck is supposed to happen like how can anybody you know why the DSA is really catching on I'll tell you why the DSA is really catching on the DSA is really catching on because they're going to places

that they know people care and they don't care they're catching you know on because they're saying, you know what, to the degree, even within the box a little bit, because they're not, because I know people to the left of them, but it's like, they're going, I don't give a fuck. I don't care. This is what I'm being told.

This is what I see. And this is the truth. And the center of the Democratic Party is lashing them for it. I have criticisms of the American left. Those criticisms are a decentralizing of the black experience sometimes that I see on the left. hey guys, I'm at all the meetings, but I'm sorry. We've been saying this for a long time. We said this with Graham Platner for a long time.

Nobody listened, and that's just the reality of it. It's a fact. However, what I also see is not just populism. I see things being common sense that the center of the party will not agree are common sense. Like, I see a critique of capitalism that is common sense that still feels like people can really come to. Yeah. I see a critique of our Middle East policy. Israel and all of these things that are common sense to people, that people go, wait, whoa, hold on,

and the party still can't do it. So in a more broad, robust sense, why do you think the DSA is catching on as an insurgency inside of the party all across the board? Because people get that the current system is broken, and they get that it's too beholden to money in politics. They get that there's a donor class that has way too much influence on our politics. And they're wondering, why are all these things? Medicare for all, free college, taxing billioners, stopping aid to Israel. 70, 80 percent of people are supporting it.

And yet the vast majority of our leadership are not saying it. What's the disconnect? And so they say, well, obviously the system's not working. You know, I was at the DNC. I gave a speech, and people applauded when I said, free enterprise system capitalism isn't working. We need a better system. But then when I would offer specifics, when I would. I would say, and that's why we need to call out the genocide in Gaza, you know, a little uncomfortable.

And that's why we need to abolish ICE, a little uncomfortable. Suddenly, it only half the room. Someone said, Roe, do you have to be that divisive? I said, I'm offering policies that 70, 80 percent of people agree. But you got a old guard or a guard of people with a lot of power and a lot of money. And, you know, the honest truth is, I don't know if this is the best way to win a national election. The DSA you mean. Being for these policies, right?

But you got to, we've got to try. We've got to try what Zoran did if you had asked people, this was Zeran's platform of 1% and he's talking about arresting Benjamin Netanyahu. Medi Hassan, a friend of mine, he said, I had Zoran on early on. And he goes and he says, what are you going to do as mayor? He says, I'm going to arrest Netanyahu.

And I said, wow, you know, great guy, got no shot in hell to win. I mean, he's a great guy. And Zoran went out and he showed he could win, right? Zoran didn't get there thinking, I am going to be mayor of New York. He got there thinking, this is what I want to do. And if it works out, great. And if not, I've fought for what I believe in. And I just think that what you know with some of the folks in DSA and folks are progressive, is they're fighting for what they believe in. They're not out there calculating. Now, I have disagreements with them, but my whole point... Like what?

Like what? Yeah. Well, I disagree with their view, I mean, as the platform it comes out of that we should have no military or no funding for the military. And I voted against military budgets again and again. You realize, though, that, like, those, that, that DSA platform is very rarely, very rarely accepted. and fought for by any of the candidates that we see running from the, as DSA candidates. Yeah, that's why I've endorsed a lot of DSA candidates, right?

I endorse. So let's talk about, besides that, the DSA, besides that, in the, I guess the political experiment of the DSA that we've seen in places, like all over New York, wherever, wherever here in Los Angeles, Nithir Rahman, all of that stuff. Those candidates and the more mainstream held beliefs of the DSA, what are your main disagreements? Well, first of all, I've endorsed a lot of these candidates, right? I've endorsed, I supported Malat.

I supported Claire Valdez. I supported Francesca Hung in Wisconsin. I know. I supported Zoran. So, you know, a lot of these candidates, even... Not many disagreements is what you're saying. In many, I support them on Medicare for All. I support them in zero funding for Israel.

I support them on no weapon sales to Israel that are being used to kill civilians. I support them on taxing the billionaires. You know, where they may probably disagree is I still believe that there's a value in entrepreneurship, innovation, a free enterprise system, and they may have a broader, deeper critique of that. But, you know, obviously I felt comfortable enough not just supporting them. I campaigned for a lot of them. So I view it as, yeah, I hate the broad label. I look at it and where do they stand policy-wise?

And do they want to ultimately improve life for working class and middle-class Americans? And do they want to recognize that the system's not working? And I love the insurgency because our party, this problem is not that suddenly like, oh, we're doing too much. Like, it's not like we've passed Medicare roll and attacks on billionaires and we're going to an excess. Our problem is we're static. Like the change doesn't happen. You know, where people get in and their wages are still stagnant. They get in and, you know, the wealth inequality is still exploding.

I've been in Congress 10 years, and you're right, the wealthy inequality is exploded. And my fear for this country is, is it solvable? Can we actually, yeah, we get the presidency, we get the House, we get the Senate, but we're up against these macro forces of capital and billionaires and multinational corporations. Can politics actually change this? That's the fear, because if it can, we're going to see worse in terms of the virulence of an anti-system politics. And so to me, the question isn't like, can we stop the insurgency? It's can the insurgency wake up our politics to actually act?

Look, for the new deal to happen, it took a world war and a depression. Yeah. Like, is that what it's going to take in America to snap us in? No, we have a depression every five years under capitalism. We get like we have depression. We don't have a depression, but we have a cataclysm. Like 2008, upward transfer of wealth like we hadn't seen before. Then again in COVID, and you know and I know that very soon another one is going to come.

Like really soon, so you guys are going to have your chance. Last thing I'll ask you about the DSA. What do you make of the fact that the center of the party seems to be fighting harder against the DSA? than they ever did against MAGA. Well, it shows the hypocrisy, because they kept telling us, you got to be for blue. Trump is an existential threat.

Then you get Chuck Schumer. Did you see his comments the other day that, well, we may not need Michigan to get to the Senate, the majority? I mean, who says that? So when there have been centrist candidates, I've done my small part, the campaign for them. They kept sending me to Darborn, Michigan

for Vice President. Harris. And I went like four or five times to try to get votes for her. And finally I set the people in the Harris campaign. I said, they don't care what I think about Gaza. They care about what the vice president thinks. But I did my part. A lot of the progressives did our part. And so now that you have progressives winning, you have a group of people who are more concerned about them than they are building a broad majority. And it's just wrong. I mean, it's a undermining their fundamental point that Trump, and what he's doing poses a threat to the country.

Last question for me. And this kind of just brings it back to the beginning question about whether or not you'll run. I believe you've said that Democrats who've lost to Trump twice should not define the party's future. Yeah. They have no expertise because they keep doing the unelectable thing, right? You know, well, you know, someone like Roe Kana,

put aside just in a hypothetical. Well, how can a guy from the Bay Area who's an Indian American Hindu and only a house member, how could that person be electable? Chat GPT tells us that we've got to run a white governor from the Midwest who connects with moderate voters, right? This is their, and they fill the airwaves, and they define people who are different as unelectable. And that's their secret because people obviously want to win. You want a candidate of wins. And what I've said is, you know, first of all, the people who bring transformative change in this country,

Whether it is a FDR who had polio, whether it was a Democratic, a Jewish socialist like Bernie Sanders, Barack Hussein Obama, they tend not to be conventional. They tend to be out of the mold. And I'm tired. Or the son of a single mother from Hope Arkansas. Yeah? I mean, or Clinton. I mean, you know, Lincoln. They're not the conventional folks.

And yet there's this, so what I said is they've lost now twice. Just, I'm not saying I have a recipe for what's electable, but can we stop hearing what your recipe is for what's electable? Because your recipe for what's electable is just a way to cut out people you don't agree with. When you said that, was that, were you intimating that Vice President Harris shouldn't run again? No, because Vice President Harris absolutely should have the right to run again and should make her case. Now, if Vice President Harris got on the stage and said, well, I'm the only one who's electable and, you know, someone else is not electable, then I would have an issue with her. But who is Roe Kana to say that Vice President Harris isn't electable, right?

Like, that would be equally arrogant. I'm just up to view like, how about we not try to prejudge what electability is? And how about we stop obsessing about the current poll numbers? You talked about Bill Clinton. You know, like Bill Clinton was 13 or 14. points down to Bush senior after he won the nomination. And now we look at the current poll numbers. Oh, no. Someone's two points up, three points up. Who the hell cares? Just let the process play out. Go with your heart. You know, when go with who you actually think is as a right vision

for the country, for Congress, for Senate, and stop the obsession on electability. Because the people, person we thought was totally unelectable won twice. Right. They have some humility. That's all I'm at that's my my only point You know Roe I do this game I gotta let you go but I do this game where I like I look at someone I have this like uncanny skill We've talked about it on higher I've learned before Where I can look at somebody

We've talked about it on higher learn before You know what I'm about to say? Yes I can look at somebody Non-black right that's not black And I can tell how many times they've said The N-word in their life Like if you're non-black person I can look at them and tell how many times,

I can just look at them and tell how many times they said the N-word. Before you got here, I tried this with you. I was like, what's Rose number at how many N-words? Because, like, I don't know if you listen to hip-hop or whatever you got going on and stuff like that. And I couldn't do it. It was almost like, you know, sometimes, I don't know if you follow Star Wars. You don't have to get nervous.

I saw the little tick. It's like you follow Star Wars. Wars is like, you know, the emperor was there right in front of May's window, but the emperor like put this thing on him and Mace couldn't see neither could Yoda that the emperor was right there. I couldn't see your number. Really? I couldn't. Have you met Indian immigrant parents? You think my parents will let me use the N-word? So what is, so I'm asking you now what's the number? It's a zero. Ever. Ever. The N-word, yeah, because I grew up and, now, obviously, I've used the F-word and the cursing stuff, but I grew up with that.

That was, you know. You have a zero. Zero. Do you know how, do you know that that's like? I don't know if that makes me lose credibility or something. No, no, no. You want a zero. But I, you know, I mean, some would say that if somebody says a zero, then it's actually like a $4,000.

Because that means that you've only done this with white people. But that's even different, though, because it's sometimes a different. It got cloudy for you when you looked at it. Because I couldn't tell. I grew up with Indian immigrant parents, right? Like who, you know, it was, you got, you had to be proper and you have to make good grades and you had to study and you had to, you had to be polite. And, you know, they would have been horrified. I mean, if they had heard you.

And they would have been rolling down the street. Yeah, I mean, they would have been just utterly, utterly horrified. So you was never fucking with two pilots? I mean, like I listen to the Tupac of like, you know, we got too much money for war, not enough for the poor or something. Ro! You know, there you got, you know. Ro! No inter-word.

Ro! So this is what we're going to do? You didn't ask me how many times have I heard the word? You said how many times have I said the word? The other thing is that, look, as a person, even as a person of color, I understood pretty early on that being Indian American is different than being black in America. And I've never pretended to be black. I never pretended that my experience. Like, I have a pretty optimistic view of the country because I grew up Indian American in Bucks County.

And, yeah, I had times, especially after 9-11 where, you know, you had extra, every time I'd have security screening. But by and large, you know, the country was open to my experiences and I got to do a lot of things. And, you know, that's very different than being black American. So I never, I was never like, you know, I got to hang and be like that. I'm comfortable in who I am or something. and I, you know, that's, that's, uh, there. It's the first time he's ever been cloudy. All right.

He's had a clear number. Sorry, does it. Let me help change. Let me help change the subject because we're going to let you go. You think the AOC? That was just about to say. Yeah. We did a whiteboard game, the last podcast.

Pretty popular around here. Some people even copied it. Um, shall not be named. It shall not be named. Copy that game. We need to see you. You might be running at 2028. It's possible.

It's almost rumored that maybe. AOC is running. It's also rumored that she's single now. So we decided to help her out and give her what we thought could be a really good partner for her if she decides, well, just in life, but also if she decides to enter the 28 race. We have some presidentials. Who would you hate to go up, but hate to see her partners with that could be your bigger competition. Can you read from there? Look, I'm a fan of Trevor Noah. Robert Noah, Leonard DeCaprio, Tyler Perry, Ben Affleck, Michael Shrayhan, James Tala Rico, and Dak Prescott.

You know, I'll tell you this. What's the power couple that would scare you the most? Trevor Noah, because AOC, the one thing that people don't appreciate about her fully is how intellectual she is. She's really, really smart. She's really prepared. And Trevor Noah, I'll follow that list. I mean, he's very, very, like when I listen to Trevor Noah, I learn stuff, right? And so that would be a power couple.

If she got with Trevor Noah, if AOC got with Trevor Noah, you would be like, damn, that's tough. That would be a lot of horsepower. That would be, I mean, that would be pretty, pretty, pretty impressive. I don't know, but it's Trevor Noah married or something. Fuck it. Fuck it, bro. Bro, who cares? Fuck it.

You're here. Like, you know, fuck it. You're single. I don't know how much. You're like, who fucking kidding? Our choice was Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck? Okay.

So do you think that Ben Affleck, because we went with Ben Affleck, do you think, so you put Trevor Noah over Ben Affleck as the power couple? Yes, by far. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I do. Rose saying the electability thing with the white, that don't even matter. A couple of colors.

I mean, I mean, you know, I watched, you know, Goodwill Hunting with a while. when he was like, Matt Damon, that was like my, but like Trevor Noah, I learned stuff when I hear him. Like, I was like, oh, I would never have thought of that. I couldn't have ever said that the way he does. Trevor Noah also has a really understanding of colonialism. Yeah. Yeah, my grandfather, you know, you may, remember, my grandfather was in jail twice

under British colonialism and was part of Gandhi's independence women. So when I hear Trevor Noah speak, I was like, okay, here's someone who understands the West from a way that someone outside the West speaks and that's that's uh uh so that so that

so he'd be good on the campaign trail you know the campaign trail funny introduce her and the whole deal no the rock would probably just win the campaign for you right I don't know

see it's like you know I don't know I mean it's like he's thought of running too hasn't he he has

I think he's I think he's uh you know thought he's got such a great life though it's like why would he yeah he's getting in there

Roe this was awesome um I enjoyed it this may have been my favorite episode Now, let me tell you something. Just so people know, boom. For me and for us, I don't want to speak for Rachel, but for us, what we are looking to do with our candidate interviews, which we are going to do, is to be able to have interviews that are based in some discourse, but at the same time, penetrate and get to the point of what we feel like people believe in. And the credit I'll give you, and I mean this sincerely, is that you, I've seen you make blunder.

but you are about community, meaning you have the conversation about it. You have the conversation, even when something doesn't go the right way or the way that you wanted to, you're first on certain things, you're out there, you're not afraid to buck your own party system.

I am probably a little bit now, didn't start this way to the left of you, but honestly, I think you're a trustworthy guy. Well, that's a high compliment. You started at an end. As a guy, as a politician, as your life. guy. But like as a guy.

You don't have to qualify every compliment, you know? They're not going to click this. It's not going to be on my TV end. You know, like Haley Stevens kept running Obama praising her. You know, I'm going to have the head. He's a trustworthy guy. It's all over. All over TV.

That's what, sir. Thank you for joining them. Thank you. We appreciate you. Jay, Young Thug. Yes. So Young Thug has sparked a debate after telling students that fame is more important than money.

On Monday, Thugger was speaking at an elementary school in McCann, Georgia, when he was supposedly asked what's more important, fame or money? And we have a video of it for you. Macon. Macon. Macon. So, pain is really the most important.

It's very important. You got to keep open. You got to all that. It makes sure it lead. It leads you to the right movement. You got to move. You got to move. You got to move.

So many things you don't know about pain is very important. You don't know the move. You've got enough to be. Because you end up in like situations. I've ended up in situations. So pain is really the most important. If you're back, you almost as important as the richest person in the world.

Okay. So this is, we're gonna do a new segment. Oh, we tried this already and niggas hated it. Remember we tried to do it with love? We tried to do the love hour. Please try to with love this. I can't. You got something right there.

You got something right there. Like, yeah, it's good. Okay, please try to with love this. I can't because, okay, so look. So if I was going to try to with love this, I would say that he was asked, fame or money, that he was asked. He, well, apparently he was. He was asked. Yeah.

The kid asked him, fame or money, which is more important, fame or money. And really, I would have answered differently. I would be like, well, I mean, I would have said fame and money or what they tell you is important, but what is actually important. is your self-esteem, your consciousness, and your understanding of the systems and societies, things around you is what I would have said. This looks very bad in this contemporary current thing, and there's really no way to say that without saying it.

This don't look good. But you know what the saddest thing to me is, though? He believes it. Not that he believes it. The saddest thing to me is that that's what the case. kid asked. So what I want, I'm not in any way taking the, let me tell you about the way I look. Actually, that's not sad to me, but keep going. It is to me. I can understand what you're saying, though, because they stay so young, right? Well, how they're supposed to know? It's almost like,

if the kid is thinking that, I think that that's actually great. Yeah. I think it's actually good that he's not immediately like, I just want to be famous and I want everybody to know. He's actually thinking, well there's a difference between the two and I want to know and you're both so which one's better I actually think that there's some introspection with that question for me I guess I guess as a kid

that's kind of the question you would ask like what's like as a kid you'd ask that fame or money we always like we're the first victims of the lifestyle of rich and famous sort of social engineering the two that's where I say I like it If he could have asked said, like, what does it feel like to be famous?

Right. What is it? But instead, he understands that there's a difference and wants to understand which ones, or she, wants to understand which one's better. I think what people would have wanted in this situation is there to be some wisdom that came from. Oh, you think? What? Of course, I mean.

Does that sound like Stephen A. Smith? Because my with love would have been, oh, he didn't hear the question. Well, he answered the question. But he couldn't have heard it. Right. Because no fucking way you would have said that. He must not have heard the question. That is my with love.

I hate every part of this. I'm so sorry. That's what makes me sad. So do you think Young Thug should have had a different answer? Should he have said money or should he have had enough wisdom to be like, fame and money are not the things that you want to orient importance around as an adult? Young Thug was in jail for how long? Doesn't matter.

He was famous in jail. What'd that do for you? Right. What'd it do for you? You can be famous doing some stupid shit. People go viral and are forgotten about the next week and you're famous for a second. Or you create a viral dance and the dance lives on

but not you being tied to that. Famous fleeting. And that's what he should have said. If you want to know what's more important, obviously it's money and then you explain why. It's not about just having a lot. It's what you're able to do with it. Money gives you power.

Fame doesn't necessarily give you power. It gives you recognition. A lot of people are famous. And then fame doesn't mean it's widespread. You can be famous in like a monoculture. You can be famous within your community. You can be famous regionally, nationally. Fame could also be considered subjective,

especially because there's so many ways that you can be famous now. It's obviously money. He couldn't have heard the question. So this is what I'll say. And it's going to be, once again, unpopular with people. I personally think that the number one currency in

this particular society that we live in right now is fame. And can I tell you why? Please tell me. Because I've seen people that have had careers that have washed out in the thing that they were doing and they pop back up as streamers.

they pop back up as people who are talkers. They pop back up as that. And then you see sometimes that they better at that than the shit that they was on at first. I've seen people like, like if you look at somebody like AB, AB was a boxer, I followed AB's whole career. A.B. was at the end of what he was doing as a boxer. He was always an entertaining talker.

He could sell a fight like nobody else. But because AB had a name, when he started streaming, he could get people back involved in what it is, that he is doing. And now his bag is back up. The money he had already gone through it. But the fact that he was Adrian Bruner is something that people were interested in.

And so now, because of that, when he starts streaming, he has this, damn, they keep doing this. When he starts streaming, he has this incredible head start on everybody else. And now his money is back up. Like, even when that movie,

I watched that movie Rocky, like Rocky Balboa, not Rocky Balboa, like Rocky five, and Rocky lost all his money, and then they went back and they started living in the hood. Do you know why that would never happen? Because Rocky Balboa was one of the most popular and famous heavyweight champions of all time.

So when Rocky lost his money, they really wouldn't have, in actuality, so flaw in the movie, had to go back and live in the ghettos of Philly or the inner city neighborhoods of Philly because Rocky would have been able to go to, like, boxing places and sign stuff. Rocky would have been able to go,

Rocky still had a name that he would have been able to trade off of. So if it like right away somebody. So, but that's besides the point. I understand what you're saying. But I'm not saying I'm even right about that. It's just my opinion. And also TMZ probably the right answer to give to a child in that situation, in my opinion, the right answer is, hey, fame, money. These are not the things that you should be orienting your future around.

What you should be orienting your future around is what are the things in your life that are going to work for you, and for your family and for all of that. Who do you want to be? Not what do you want to be, rich or famous. Who do you want to be? Ask yourself that, and if you commit to that,

most of the time, like, whatever fame or whatever money is ancillary on the back. That's the wisdom I would have given. And it would have been great. Fame is also something that other people decide for you. Without a doubt. And you're allowing them to define and dictate

what you represent. in who you are in this society. There's no power in that. Well, I'll tell you something else. I mean, there is, because I understand your point. Money is the same way. You're a billionaire when you got the Adidas thing, and then they go, no Adidas thing,

you're not a billionaire no more. You're still rich, but you're not a billion. Like, even the money, I've seen this, I've covered this for a long time. People thinking that they can't take that away from you, they take it away all the time. For sure. But I would say this, this question in and of itself is something that I think that we should be asking in a different way.

I will agree. But that's a baby, though. It's a baby. A baby is like, I want to be on TV and all this stuff. It could have been worse. Who knew that the answer would have been worse than the question? Yeah, that's tough. That's tough.

But, hey, we're a community, so we learn, we talk, we call each other in, we do all of that stuff. All right? What would you have done if you were like a teacher or principal? I would have cut the mic so quick. No, let the other answer. And then we talk about it and we go, hey, we talk about, you know, let the answer. No, you couldn't be like, I think you're wrong and here is why. Or I don't think that that's, and this is why.

Oh, if I get involved. Yeah, after that, I get involved. Yeah. Yeah, I get involved. And I talked like, but like, you know, remember when Birdman went to the prison and the prisoners asked for books? And Birdman goes, books ain't the, I'm like, you know, we just want some wisdom. We want some wisdom.

We don't have to agree, but let's at least have a conversation about that, what that wisdom would be. I don't know. Okay, cool. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research.

Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. All right. Take the thin caps off. Do not stop learning. Thank you for Roe Kana to come along to the podcast. You are. He's Van Lathen, Jr., and I'm Rachel Litton.

Bye, guys. My phone. My phone. I'm welcome to you.