On with Kara Swisher - Ruben Gallego Is Ready to Take On “Queen MAGA” Kari Lake for Kyrsten Sinema’s Seat

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

After Kara and Nayeema debrief the latest Elon drama (the Congressional hearings in which conservatives failed to prove they’d been “censored” on Twitter), we dive into our interview with Representative Ruben Gallego. The Arizona congressman is the only contender so far in the 2024 race for Kyrsten Sinema’s coveted U.S. Senate seat … though he tells Kara he’d welcome the opportunity to face “Queen MAGA” Kari Lake in the race. And he explains why he’s not worried even if Senator Sinema, who left the Democratic Party in December, runs in a three-way race.  Also, Gallego discusses some of the issues of identity politics and wedge issues that we also heard with last week’s guest Brooke Jenkins. You can listen to that episode here, if you missed it.  Thoughts? Email us [e-mail] or find us Kara and Nayeema on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is the Super Bowl halftime show with 99% less Rihanna. Just kidding. It's 100% less sports. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Neha Miraza and it's actually 100% less Rihanna. 99%. I have 1% Rihanna. But speaking of musical icons, Madonna showed up at the Grammys with a lot of plastic surgery and this kind of new face. Sexy baby face. The article you shared yesterday, the Washington Post piece.

Yeah, there was one in the New York Times, too, that was also very good. That was Jennifer Wiener. Yeah. It was great. They were both great. I thought they were really smart ideas. She's obviously doing it for a reason and that we have to stop judging what people do. The Times essay was saying that it was basically performance art by the queen of performance art. Yeah. You buy it? I could be.

There's been 10 hundred Madonnas. She's changed herself and her image. You know, there's British Madonna. There was sexy Madonna. There was punk Madonna. You know, she's been a lot of Madonnas. So let it be whatever Madonna she feels like being. I don't, you know, I don't love it, but I didn't like all of them. I didn't like British Madonna either. And she gives no fucks. I mean, it might be that she's critiquing society by demonstrating the kind of surrealism of our beauty expectations. But I liked on Instagram that she was like, I haven't cared for 40 years what you all think, and I don't care what you all think now. So thank you very much. I. That's pretty much on brand for her. I thought that was interesting. But today, in lieu of Rihanna, in lieu of Madonna.

In lieu of Rihanna. Madonna. Yeah, all the Annas. But we do have a great guest today, Representative Ruben Gallego, the Arizona Democrat who is bidding for Kyrsten Sinema's seat. But before we get to him, Kara, the people have asked for your reaction to the latest Elon news. Which one? Which Elon news? Exactly. The hearings on the Hill, it was nonsense, total nonsense. And the Republicans looked idiotic. I thought the executives did a great job and they were just pushing back on the nonsense. It's just, it's ridiculous. It's

a waste of taxpayer money. I wish they would stop. Especially because of, you know, a lot of this focused on this idea that Twitter had blocked an unsubstantiated New York Post article about Hunter Biden, which they had blocked. And Jack Dorsey, who was CEO at the time, said, you know, our bad. They also came out with this conspiracy theory. Marjorie Taylor Greene was grandstanding on the conspiracy theory that you all wrought this. They're just liars. And, you know, people sort of made a mistake with Hunter Biden. But, you know, Jim Jordan made a couple of mistakes way back in the day when he was a wrestling coach, didn't he? We should discuss that at length and

investigate that. Allegedly, allegedly made mistakes when he was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State. You know, everybody makes mistakes, Jim Jordan. I hope he's listening, by the way. His staff certainly does. They do, actually. But why do you think Republicans do this? Is there a chance that they think, okay, we are creating content out of complete disinformation to create more disinformation? Is that the idea here? I don't know what they're trying to do here. I think it's not going to stick with independent voters. It's not going to... Everyone's over this. Everyone's over this. And the only one in danger was Yoel Roth, who had to sell his house. Yeah, who was really targeted. And I thought that was poignant in the hearings. You should all listen to our interview with him.

It was great. One thing, Democrats also came on to the hearing. They asked questions about January 6th and, you know, discovered that Twitter was actually making the rules more flexible. Yes, yeah. Do you think that was a smart decision by Democrats? Because they were coming on to their playing field saying, okay, let's actually pull out more as a backlash. I thought that was smart. There's no conspiracy anywhere. That's the issue. It's just like, look, these are these companies and they're worried about Trump attacking them. That's

all. That's all. And he pressured them because he didn't want to be called a pussy ass bitch by Chrissy Teigen. Whatever. You know, it's just ridiculous. I was literally like, there's my taxpayer dollars at work. Why don't you get to something really important? Like, I don't know, electrification of vehicles across the country. Whatever. I don't really care what they work on, but this is ridiculous. And it's just, it's part of the, you know, the Elonosphere, I guess, this ridiculous, talk about a mind virus. That's what these people have. Yeah. But let's talk about someone whose future is a little bit brighter than Elon's, Representative Ruben Gallego. He's the progressive Democrat serving in Congress, but we wanted to talk to him now because he's running for this critical Senate seat in 2024. Kyrsten Sinema is everybody's

favorite senator. Sinema recently left the Democratic Party and declared herself independent. So Gallego won't face Sinema in the primary, but there's a good chance he'll be running against both Sinema and a very maggot candidate like Carrie Lake in the general. Exactly. So he was very confident in the interview, which we taped a couple of days ago and are going to play in a second. But the math is challenging in a state that's basically 35% Republican, 34% Independent, and 31% Democrat.

This is a microcosm of purple state, all kinds of MAGA stuff, progressive Democrats. It's really interesting. And it's a critical seat because the Senate is really exposed for the Democrats in the next cycle. It's challenging for every one of them who's running. That's the thing. And how someone puts it together, you know, if they get Kerry Lake, that's a good person for him to run against. So I don't know. I think he has a

pretty good chance. And as Tara Palmieri put it in Puck, which is one of my favorite lines, Sinema is rat-fucking the Democrats and Gallego is just fucking the Democrats. But, you know, he's got a good chance. I don't know if he is fucking the Democrats. I don't either. I think he's a very good candidate for that seat. And, you know, it's going to be a real toss-up. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Carrie Lake has tried to brand Gallego as the AOC of Arizona.

And meanwhile, some progressives have said that Gallego is not progressive enough because he pushed back on this term Latinx. Is that really the reason? I mean, he's a member of the progressive Democratic caucus. But this is similar to what we heard, you know, to how Brooke Jenkins was describing, like people want her to be, she's too left for some, too right for others. And people think because of how she looks, she should be a certain way.

Yeah. Well, you know, we talk about this. You know this as a woman of color. I mean, you and I disagree. You know, you're more, I would say more conservative than I am, I would say. I would say, I don't know if I'm more conservative. I do, what I don't like is people try to pin on you what you should expect. And I experienced this where people try to interpret your culture

for you and tell you what you should or should not do. And it happens by conservatives. It happens by progressives. People will tell you what you should think, or people can assume what you think because of how you look. And that is not. Or they assume other things. I mean, it's interesting. And being a gay person, it's like, you're for this. I'm like, no, I'm not. But I want to say one thing, by the way. I don't know that I am more conservative than you. You are. I think I can. I mean, I am amazing.

It's like jailed homeless. You are. I am not like that. Yeah, you are. You are, Blanche. Sorry. I didn't say jailed homeless, I said. I'm kidding, I'm teasing. It's scary. I said that there can't just be free reign on the streets in New York. Well, there isn't. Of course not.

For a while in the pandemic, there was. Honestly, if it was a fight between you and most people in the street, I would feel sorry for the other person. I'm not even slightly worried about you on the street. So I'm worried about the people you encounter more so. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with Ruben Gallego. I am not saying those things about homeless people.

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Welcome, Congressman Gallego. Thanks for having me. I am very excited to talk to you. And I'm going to start off with the 2024 Senate race. I have to because you just announced this. off with the 2024 Senate race. I have to because you just announced this. So explain to me why you were motivated to go after Kyrsten Sinema when you sat out the other races. For example, you considered running against Mark Kelly in 2020 after John McCain's death, left an open seat. How much is replacing Sinema motivated for you or what was the calculation? Well, it's not so much replacing Sinema. It's actually having a senator that's fighting for the people that need representation. You know, the people that, you know, like me growing up that didn't come from,

you know, advantageous positions. I grew up in a family of four. My mom was a secretary. You know, I slept on a floor. I worked after school jobs, everything I could to make the American dream. And I actually was a big supporter of Kirsten. And when she, I think, finally proved who she was last year, even prior to changing her status to independent, I was thinking and considering running against her because I just felt that at this point, Arizona just didn't have the representation that they deserved and that they voted for. And the reason I didn't run against Mark Kelly back in 2018 is is number one, because I would have lost, just to be honest. He was a great candidate. And I did not want to spend two whole

years being negative against somebody who I mostly aligned with and actually have basically the same viewpoint. Right. So what was the changing point? You said you were aligned with her at some point. What occurred from your perspective? Was the links to the venture capitalists? What? Yeah, it was a combination of a lot of things. I think the first one that really, I would say, put me over the top was when she rejected the John Lewis Voting Rights Act for a couple of reasons. Number one, post-Jan, you know, there was a serious threat, I think, to our democracy. You know, we had the insurrectionists in the House, but then you also had the corporate legal insurrectionists, the lawyers that were going from district to district, state to

state, and trying to change laws to make it more difficult for people to vote. And the fact that she didn't recognize that was a problem. And the fact that, you know, for someone she purported to be a good friend of hers and her mentor, John Lewis, who she voted for numerous times a speaker, as soon it was politically no longer viable, she, you know, cast them to the side. But then look, you know, she negotiated for pharmaceutical companies in regards to bringing down the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients. That was a big thing. You know, you have people in Arizona that are driving to Mexico to get cheap drug prices.

You know, the pharmaceutical lobbyists have a lot of lobbyists on Capitol Hill. They don't need one paid for with taxpayer dollars in a senator. And I think lastly, what probably was a huge motivator too was the fact that she was negotiating tax cuts for hedge fund managers and private equity managers, something that we don't really have in Arizona. And so, you know, this is a hard job, no matter what you do.

But the reason I've always thought that, you know, Sinema was doing this type of work, you know, serving the public, because we kind of have the same values. But clearly, she decides to use her time working more for the powerful than for the people that really need true representation. So right now, obviously she's attested by much of the party. Is there something that she's done that you have liked in that time period? Well, certainly there was a lot of opportunities that we actually worked together. I think that her time in the House was actually a very good example of working across the aisle. A lot of her accomplishments are good and laudable, but we have to remember a lot of them were actually watered down for what they could have been. A good example is we talk about the gun control legislation.

The gun control legislation that we passed is a watered-down bill of an originally watered-down bill, but because we are adhering to the rules of the filibuster, we can't really get strong bills. The Inflation Reduction Act, great bill, but that was also a watered down bill because she decided to negotiate for pharmaceuticals. Our bipartisan infrastructure bill, great bill, but again, she was the one who negotiated down the number and we could have actually had some very transformative infrastructure pass in this country that would have probably set us in the right direction for a lot of great things in the future. So it was a compromise, a history of compromise, as we're talking about. Well, the history of compromise is not the problem. Actually, complicity.

Yeah, when you're compromising against – when you're the person that's actually causing it when you, it's not, you know, the question is like, who are you actually doing this for? And that's the last problem is that she doesn't really communicate to her constituents. We don't know what is her motivation because she doesn't talk about it. She doesn't talk about who she's voting for, why she's voting for it. She does not have one unscripted moment where, you know, constituents could actually talk to her. So all of that combination is what I think causes a lot of the angst that comes towards her. Which motivated you to do this. Yeah. And also, by the way, it's not just Democrats. Like we see polling where she is underwater with independents just as much as Democrats. And, you know, I think that's going

to be a very difficult situation for her. If she runs, if she stays in this race, she's going to lose no matter what. But even if I had not run, she was going to lose to a Republican because her numbers were that bad. That you've been seeing. These are numbers you've been seeing. But one thing my staff is saying, her popularity with independents is up 13 points, which is more than the decline in her popularity with Democrats, actually. Yeah, there's been other public polling that says otherwise. Okay. So when you announced your run, Carrie Lake has tried to brand you the AOC of Arizona.

I don't think you look much like AOC, but okay. You tweeted, which was, you're a very good tweeter, by the way. We call Carrie Lake the Carrie Lake of Arizona. And yes, that is an insult, which is funny. But let's address her point beyond glib tweets. Talk about her and her phenomena, because she's obviously has a constituency and is popular and is a very compelling candidate, for sure. No, no, absolutely not. She's not a compelling candidate. No, I think that's a very, for those who live in Arizona, I've worked in politics in Arizona.

She's a retread of a lot of kind of right wing populist candidates that used to be able to win elections. She's not going to win this election. Carrie Lake is a very, very weak candidate. She won't go, you know, and talk to the press openly. She's going to be very sequestered in her little right wing bubble. She lost precincts that, you know, had been traditionally Republican precincts and lost it to, you know, our candidate who ran a good race, but also refused to debate her. So, you know, I think there is just this mythology of Carrie Lake being a strong candidate. It's just not true. She has excitement, but it does not actually translate into electoral success. So what do you make of her calling you the AOC of Arizona? I want to understand you.

Well, because number one, she knows that I'm going to, you know, thoroughly destroy her in an election. So she needs to start early branding me. But she also knows that my story is very much a strong American story, the story of, you know, the son of immigrants being able to live the American dream, serve his country, you know, all these things that really cross, I think, a lot of barriers. You know, we are going to be able to talk to a lot of independents about this American dream. We're going to be able to bring back Latino voters that have not been voting or have started to vote Republicans because we're actually going to be able to talk to them, both in terms of culturally, but also talk to them in their

language, something that they have not seen in, I think, probably decades in Arizona. And so I am a real threat to people like Carrie Lake because they need to have both the kind of cultural rage voters that they love to gin up, but there's a lot of disaffected working class voters that they depend on, and they know that I'm going to be able to pull that. Now, why AOC? Is that as much of an insult in Arizona? I don't even know. I actually don't know. I think, you know, a lot of these candidates, you know, get into the little bubble and they think that that's something that translate. I don't think many people in Arizona actually know who AOC is. And so I think she's just throwing things out there. I think she thinks that she can just

punch her way into a victory. At the end of the day, it's just not going to work. Arizona is not that type of state. It wasn't that type of state in 2022, where we picked up almost every statewide seat and certainly won't be in 2024. I do think everyone knows who AOC is, but okay. But on the other side of the spectrum, some progressives said you aren't progressive enough, even though you're a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Part of the critique is because in 2021, you banned the use of the word Latinx in your office. Explain that controversy, because people have a problem with complexity. We didn't ban it. What we said is that if you are going to use in the office, it has to be requested. Uh, and so look, this is a, this is a phenomena among Latinos and there is some, uh, deep, uh, animosity to the word Latinx being used in our community and being kind of imposed

upon us. It's not that we're anti, uh, trans or we definitely anti-LGBTQ, but we, you know, a lot of us, and that's not saying all of us, don't like that word. Now, what we do in our office is we basically allow the persons that we are communicating with to identify themselves. So if we are meeting with a group and they say, hey, we identify as Latinx, then we will absolutely respect that and call them that. The reason we actually brought, I brought this up is because, to be honest, there was just this conversation happening around political circles, especially among Latino political circles about, you know, what happened in 2020 and why the numbers had kind of gone against us. And, you know, a lot of consultants were using this term Latinx while they were trying to communicate to voters. And that was a political mistake, but nobody wanted to bring up it was a political mistake.

As the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus PAC, a very successful PAC, we actually had a lot of strong wins last year, the most ever. It is my job to basically help guide the Democratic Party about how to speak to Latinos. And this is one of the steps to do that. Yeah. You had said, let me read you the quote, when Latino politicians use the term, it is largely to appease white, rich progressives who think it is a term we use. It is a vicious circle of confirmation bias. I would agree with you. I don't think anyone likes to impose words on people.

But at the same time, and I also have this other rule. The other rule is don't be an asshole rule. Uh-huh. Okay. on people. But at the same time, and I also have this other rule, the other rule is don't be an asshole rule. If somebody asks you to respect them and say, this is what I want, this is what I want to be identified as, then you should absolutely do that. And I think you have people that are trying to use this as a cut and dry rule. So I discussed this idea though with San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins of trying to wedge her into a box or wedge voters around issues. You've talked about your experience on the Latinx conversation as a, quote, exploitation wedge. Explain what you mean by that, because I think she was also talking about this. Well, I think when I say it's an exploitation wedge, it's like, look, we're having a real conversation among the Latino community,

but then there's outside people that are trying to basically use that conversation as a wedge between us and our LGBTQ friends or us and more moderate people. And when in fact, it's something that should not be abused, right? And it's okay for us to have dialogue and conversations. I think it's important that we do that. But let's not also be used as a tool by people to separate us from, you know, communities that normally are always aligned and

voting together. And I think that that does happen. It happens a lot. And I, you know, it doesn't just happen to us, you'll see that happen in the African American community, you see what happened, you know, within the gay community. And, and, you know, I try to make sure that, look, I have my opinions, but I also try to make sure that we're not used as a wedge between us and our allies as a whole. Let's define the race, too, because you said Sinema, the first Democrat in decades to win an Arizona Senate seat, thinks it's a red state. You're doubling down on the idea that it's blue. Talk about what you mean by that. Yeah, I think the state is bluer. It's not blue, right?

We're not Colorado. Colorado is a blue state. We're more like a Nevada, right? You have to fight for it. And I think that the Democratic policies, my policies, my messaging is going to be a winning message. I think that in the cinema worldview, that this is still the Arizona of 2012 know, she barely won her first race, but the state has been changing. Even in her time in 2018 that did not vote in 2016 and voted straight down the ticket. These are young Latinos who are out to basically stop Donald Trump.

And they're not, you know, the crossover Republicans. A lot of them are very, very progressive, very liberal. And certainly, I think this time around, are not going to be supporting Senator Sinema. So Democrats have had a lot of success in Arizona. Sinema, Mark Kelly twice, Biden. What do you think's really the credit for the success? Some magic formula for the Democrats or the fact that MAGA candidates have pushed the state Republicans too far, right? Yeah, it's a combination of both, actually. Yeah. I mean, we have better quality candidates and have for a while. But really, since 2010, and this is when I kind of got more involved politically and ran for state house,

we've been very active in registering and turning out Latinos to vote. That's your game changer right there. Because if you're a Democrat, you can get 60, 70% of that vote. And it's going to only keep increasing over time. Now, I certainly am going to make sure it definitely increases in 2024. But the MAGA can is pushing the Republican Party again, the recounts, the Carrie Lake of it all. The recounts, it's the extreme in general. It wasn't just the recounts in 2020, how Trump acted post-2016.

Oh yeah, Jan Brewer, you've had a lot. It's just extremism in general. 2016 was a big wake-up call to Latinos in Arizona. 2018, we came out and voted and helped not just pick up Senator Sinema, but we also picked up the Secretary of State's race. We picked up a lot of other big races that year. And I don't see them having the candidates to really change the narrative in 2024. As you said, Latinos were key to Sinema's win in 2018. They're also key to Biden's winning

the state in 2020 and statewide victories last year. But across the nation, Democrats did lose Latino votes 2020, 2021, 2022. What can the National Party learn from Arizona? Why is it bucking the national trend? Well, because we actually work every year and on year and off year to work and communicate with Latinos, whether it's, you know, city council elections, smaller elections, we're actively, you know, always doing voter registration, turnout, education. And that is what has really, you know, stopped a slide in Arizona that has not happened in other parts of the country. You know, it also we have a lot of Latino elected officials in Arizona, and they're very persuasive. They're very close to the community. They're bilingual

and they're able to communicate our values to the Latino community. And that's why you have them really stick around. If you notice some of the states where we've lost some people, there aren't many, a lot of times they don't have many Latino electeds that are actually kind of holding up the banner. So we don't know for sure that's in will run again, by the way, but if she does, will it be her independent brand be an advantage in a state that's only 30% denigrous? It's about 35% Republican and 34% independent. Over 40% of Republicans in independence approve Sinema in a recent approval writing. So what, from your perspective, what happens in that situation

where you have so many different competing groups? Well, look, we're going to run a campaign. And I think once we expose the fact that she's not independent, she's independent in name, but she's not independent from the pharmaceutical lobbyists. She's not independent from Wall Street hedge fund lobbyists. Last reporting period, 40% of her money came from private equity or hedge fund managers. I mean, that's not going to sell in Arizona. And I think she's going to have to stick to a very small group of democratically independents and a lot of Republicans and hopefully she could combine that into a election victory. But she can't. There's no polling that shows her anywhere near second place. She's always in third place. I'm going to go into fundraising in a moment, but you suggested,

as you said, in a three-way race where Sinema runs as an independent, she's likely to peel away votes from Republican candidates, which would be your hope, and not split the Democratic vote. What makes you so sure of that? Look, I think just being an Arizonan, seeing how wacky the Republicans are, I think some of know, just being an Arizonan, seeing how wacky the Republicans are, I think some of them will look for an alternative. And I think that's who Kirsten is. We have our own polling that shows that she is going to be pulling away from Republicans more.

And at the end of the day, you know, I think we're going to be able to bring in new voters. But there is no poll anywhere that has been done publicly or maybe privately that has her outside of,% to 15% in the state. And it's only going to go down from there. And lastly, she doesn't even have the grassroots support. Last cycle or last reporting period, she raised $8,000 from small dollar donors. You can't run a race from only big donors. Mark Kelly's race costs $80 million. There's only so many big donors out there. She will not be able to run a race, an effective race to actually move her out of third place.

To what extent will the Republican nominee shape the three-way race? Who it is? Game it out if Blake Masters is a Republican nominee versus a Carrie Lake. Look, I think, so Carrie Lake is the queen MAGA, MAGA queen, right? So Blake doesn't run if Carrie runs. They're all afraid of her, and they know that she would dominate in a primary. Carrie cannot help herself. She is going to fight the culture wars.

She'll get personal. She'll get mean, and that's fine. Like, you know. I'll punch back when I have to punch back. But at the end of the day, voters want solutions. They're going to want to talk about policy solutions. And when she doesn't offer them, because she just, number one, doesn't want to, number two, I don't think she knows how to, she's going to lose a lot of votes. Now, those votes may first travel to Sinema. And then once the Republican primary is over, I think they're going to have to duke it out to figure out who gets those votes back. And again, this is if Senator Sinema stays in this race. I'm not entirely sure she does. And

we're going to run the campaign like she is. But we're also, you know, going to be realistic that she may not be able to make it all the way to the election, especially considering how poor her fundraising is. We'll be back in a minute. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Procrastination. Putting it off, kicking the can down the road. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Carpet in the bathroom. Like, why? In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire.

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fundraising, Arizona's Senate race was the third most expensive Senate race last year. Sinema raised more than $22 million for 2018. You said, and she has rich friends, you said Mark Kelly's race was $80 million. It was more like $89 million for his race. $89, okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, Blake Masters had Peter Thiel money, and we know that's endless, especially since he's selling off his crypto while he's touting it.

That's before you add outside spending. How expensive will your race be? Any targets you can share? Well, I mean, look, we're going to definitely be aiming at a minimum for the Mark Kelly mark there at $89 million. It's probably going to be more expensive than that because, again, it's going to be the presidential election also. And so we're going to, you know, the prices are going to go up.

But there's going to be a lot more excitement about Arizona. We're already seeing that online. We have, you know, probably getting closer now to 60,000 individual donations. We raised more than online, I think now more than 1.5 million and growing. So you said a million bucks in 24 hours after you announced from small money donors. Yep. And then we're continuing the trajectory there. So we're going to have the campaign funds to actually win. But the other thing is, and this is something that you can factor, I've been working in Arizona to really get out the vote for many years, whether it was chairing, you know, voter registration organizations,

turnout organizations, being the vice chair of the Democratic Party. There's a lot of on the ground groups that have been key to the success of Arizona that are going to be backing me and making sure that we, again, turn out the vote and do it to make sure that we get President Biden reelected and, of course, us holding the Senate seat for Democrats. Do you see small money donors being the path here when Sinema has the Wall Street money, for example? Yeah. I mean, it goes for both sides. There's only so many big donors out there. And once they give you the max, then you can't go back and get any more. And we see it from Kyrsten Sinema's report. She has no ability to raise small dollar donations.

Yeah, she has $7.9 million from Tees Bank that. But you outraised her in the days after she announced leaving the Democratic Party. Exactly. And more importantly, the key to that is if you look at where she got her money, only $8,000 came from donations of less than $200. And you just can't win these statewide competitive races in that way. Mathematically, it's not possible. But do you need to keep up with tapping some corporate interests? Do you commit to not taking money from Wall Street bankers and big pharma and big corporations? Right now, what we're doing is we're entirely focusing on your traditional Democratic donors. And small dollar donors is largely what we're fueling.

We will take it case by case about who we're going to take money from. If you are someone who works on Wall Street but actually believe in just taxes, making sure that the rich pay their fair share, then that's fine. If you're asking for a quid pro quo return, that's definitely not going to happen. So Warren Buffett money is fine, but maybe not someone else. I mean, again, as long as you understand where my values are, we're going to tax the people that have been avoiding taxes.

We're going to close the loopholes that have been helping the hedge fund managers. We're going to close the loopholes. I've been helping the hedge fund managers. We're going to make sure that pharma has to compete to bring down the cost of Medicare. And if you work for one of those companies and you want to donate, but you understand what you're getting in return, as long as everyone's very transparent, I think we'll be fine. Yeah. And so how important is the support from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and other established groups? I know there's always controversies around that, who gets what, including in the Republican Party. Yeah, no, I think right now it's not very important. You know, the race is early. Most important thing is that we're going to have the support of the Arizona Democratic Party. And that's the organization that you have to have in order for you to actually be able to run

a full statewide campaign and also, you know, run field programs or anything else like that. And I think, you know, that's the thing that we're going to worry about. We're obviously going to talk to our friends at the DSCC. We understand that they're in a, you know, it's a hard situation and I'm a team player, but I don't want to put them in a hard situation. But we'll continue to communicate to them what we're doing and how we could work together and hopefully we'll be able to come around to some kind of agreement later. Okay. I want to do a lightning round of issues facing Arizona. Immigration. Last month, President Biden announced a crackdown on people seeking asylum after illegally crossing the border from Mexico. You've expressed concern about that. How should Democrats

be addressing the immigration issue? Well, I think the most important thing we have to do is make sure we're being realistic about it. Don't deny that there's a problem, right? There is a problem. People don't like seeing the chaos at the border. And look, I've been to the border. I've visited a lot of the small towns that are dealing with this influx. And most of these towns want to be helpful, but they also want to be helped themselves. It's costing them money to their public services dealing with this influx of migrants.

It's costing them money to their public services dealing with this influx of migrants. So we need to figure out a way to make this less chaotic, to relieve the burden that's happening for these small towns on the border. Make it also more predictable for the asylum seekers to actually ask for asylum and get a quick answer. Overall, we need to actually fix it so people can actually apply in their home country for asylum instead of trying to get to the border. That's step one. That's just dealing with asylum seekers, right? But the border is very complex. We have a lot of other issues we got to deal with.

We got to deal with the drug issue when it comes to fentanyl being brought over the border. But most fentanyl crosses the border at a customs checkpoint. And it's largely Americans that are bringing the fentanyl over the border. So you got to check every car that comes through and everyone that comes through, and that's how you catch more of it. Then you deal with the 8 to 10 million undocumented people that have been here for now a generation and trying to figure out how to get them square with the law. In the State of the Union, Biden said that if Congress won't pass immigration reform, at least equip and staff the border adequately. Is that the right priority?

I think it's a priority. I just don't think you're going to ever have true border security without immigration reform. But it's better than not doing it because right now, some of our customs officers are so overloaded that they're not able to check people crossing the border because they're dealing also with asylum seekers. So we need to help them out, give them the technology, give them the manpower, all that kind of stuff, to basically make sure that they can facilitate and do their jobs at the same time. Okay, so let's go to water. All the states that draw water from the Colorado River Basin couldn't reach an agreement on how to cut usage. They seem to never can. Now the federal government is likely to decide what can Arizona do better to protect scarce water resources.

Well, so if you're talking about water from the Colorado River Basin, we've actually done a lot more than California. We went through what's called the drop contingency plan. We made farmers stop farming in certain areas. Meanwhile, the California and Pirro Valley farmers have done nothing. Yeah, California is the holdout state on that agreement. Exactly. And they have done nothing versus everyone else on the Colorado River has actually stepped up and cut their allotments to try to mitigate the situation, making sure there's water that stays behind the dam. So that's just that water.

There's a lot of other types of water in Arizona. For other parts of it, we need to have water management areas. We cannot be building these huge developments in areas with no water, or no water at least that we can't plan for for the next 100 years. You also can't just have farmers tapping aquifers and not have any management about how much they can use because it's basically going to dry out the aquifers, dry out the wells, and it's going to kill these small rural communities. And that's something that has to be done at the state level, but it is a problem. And then lastly, at the federal level, we need more tech. We need to create, figure out how to create and bring in

more water to Arizona. All right. So speaking of technology, semiconductor plants. In December, you joined President Biden on a visit to the TSMC semiconductor factory in Phoenix. TSMC now plans to build a second factory there. Intel is expanding its semiconductor factory in the state. Obviously, a lot of companies want to move some manufacturing back from China, although it's going to be a very long haul. I think people are underestimating the problem here, the supply chain problem.

It will take years to build, if not decades. Is the investment having an impact on a state, or is it just a press visit kind of thing? No. I mean, talking to organizations like the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, which is like the kind of pro-business growth organization in Arizona. We know that besides those big announcements, that there are close to 100 different suppliers that are moving to Arizona in order to fulfill requests from Intel and TSMC. So there's definitely, you know, I hate using this word, but there's definitely a trickle down effect that's happening where there's a lot of high tech, high waste jobs that are moving to Arizona, including construction jobs, by the way, which people forget that it's very personally profitable for these construction crews to actually be working and building these very complicated fabs.

So you feel that this is a positive thing and more of it kind of thing? Yeah, I think it's a positive thing. I think it's also important for our national security. Most of our chips actually come from places like Taiwan and Singapore. And in a situation like COVID where we get cut off, we don't have control over our future. And number two, we do have enough water. Most of these fabs that use water actually recycle the water that they're using. So they end up using very little water.

And so we can have them do what they have to do without it actually becoming a burden on the water system. So I want to end this on what's going on in Congress right now, where you serve. Last summer, when asked whether you'd thought about having the House led by Kevin McCarthy, you said, no, in some regard, because it's hard for me to imagine someone that dumb being Speaker of the House. What did you really think, Representative? Well, now it's here.

I was holding back, to be honest. I know. Okay. Oh, all right. Keep going. Do you see an opportunity to work with Republican colleagues? Are you in full opposition mode? And please, keep going, really. Well, no, you should always be looking out for ways to accomplish what you need for your state and your constituents. And if that means working across the aisle, then you work across the aisle for the end

goal. And I already do. I passed lots of legislation that's been bipartisan, both on the Armed Services Committee, on the Natural Resources Committee, on my VA committee. And so I have no problem continuing doing that. I think the problem that you have is that on the bigger issues, you're not going to see the Republicans being able to compromise. I think McCarthy has basically neutered his office as a Speaker of the House to the point

where he's not going to have enough power to actually bring his members of Congress in line to strike these big deals. And I really worry about the debt limit. That's something that I think he's not going to be able to handle. So is he dumb or ineffectual? I think right now he's dumb and ineffectual. He should never have given up that type of power to some of the more radical elements of your caucus, because at the end of the day, you're going to cost the rest of your caucus probably their elections. But what's the danger for Democrats in that looking, just relying on them to be crazy? I mean,

you know, it was so interesting, the Sarah Huckabee Sanders response, there's a difference between crazy and normal. And I'm like, shh, don't say that. I think that's our campaign slogan, actually. Yes, yeah. Look, I know. You know, I think the danger of accepting that everyone understands that they're crazy is that not everyone follow politics all the time. Most Americans don't think about politics every day. So we need to really be reaching out to them and explaining to them the compare and contrast.

And this is why you should vote for Democrats, because Democrats have a better understanding of your needs. And we're going to be here to fight for you and for your future. Is it a benefit for Democrats to have this going on? Well, certainly it's a benefit. There's no denying that. But again, you can't rely on it. You can't rely on it. Okay. You can't be just against something. Exactly. Okay. So it's last question. It's widely expected Biden will announce his reelection campaign soon, but we just did a panel. They were like, we don't know. We're not sure. Should Biden run for a second term?

Yes, he should run for a second term. He's had a very successful legislative barely three years. And someone like that should be rewarded for their work and he should be trusted for what he's done. And I'm certainly going to back up 110%. It's a little over two years, but yes. Is there another more progressive candidate you'd like to see run if he doesn't? You know, at this point, I'm only going to be focusing on him. I know he can win. I know that he's done a lot of the great work that I care about. And I think, you know, for the stuff I truly care about, such as bringing about the child tax credit, you know, making sure we have an opportunity for, you know, everybody in this country, he's the person that I'm going to put my bet on.

And who do you think he's going to run against? I think at the end of the day, Donald Trump runs no matter what. No matter what. He's a con man. He knows that there's still more money to be, you know, grifted out of his followers and he's going to do it until they're broke or he goes to jail. And that's not going to happen anytime soon. So who do you want to run against in Arizona?

I don't have to run against anybody. I could beat anybody who runs against me. I know how to win this races. Nice swerve. I want a name. Thank you. I know how to hit the curveball win these races. Nice swerve. I want a name. Thank you. I know how to hit the curveball. I know.

I see that. But I want a name. Who would you, if you had to pick? Oh, yeah. I mean, like, look, if I had to pick, I want to take down the Queen Maga. Queen Maga. And I would be able to finally prove that Arizona is a state that moves on and Carey Lake is not something that sells well in Arizona.

All right. All right. All right. We'll see what happens. I'm excited about that. I'm glad you dubbed her Queen Maga, by the way. You're the one who just gave her that title. Anyway. Well, thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Representative Gallego. And good luck. Appreciate it. I love that he'd like to run against the Queen Maga. Queen Maga sounds like sort of the evil queen of Snow White or something. I'm picturing her with the sash and the parade, kind of doing the elbow, elbow, wrist wrist, elbow, elbow, wrist wrist. No, no, she's more like the Snow White or Cinderella queen. Oh.

The evil queen. Evil queen. Yeah. Mirror, mirror on the wall. That's right. It's also funny, earlier we asked him the question, we often ask people about, you know, trying to get someone to say something nice about their opponent or something that reflects on something productive or constructive their opponent had done. And it's so funny how they are incapable. Politicians cannot say that. Why would you? Why would you? Why would you say they're good at that? He did. He said at the beginning, we really did a lot of good stuff. And then she changed when she got to the money people. Yeah. He says, and the good stuff she did wasn't as good as it could have been. That was the important part. Yeah. As it turns out,

wasn't, you know, would you do that with anyone you ever had a relationship with? So what struck me from that interview is that it's some similar theme to Jenkins. It's this idea that kind of being told by a progressive, you know, he talked about kind of progressive elite whites who are not from the minorities,

telling minorities. Or living in that area, yeah. Yeah, or just like not from the context, telling people who are minorities how to living in that area, yeah. Yeah, or just like not from the context, telling people who are minorities how to navigate that context. Very familiar. And I think that's a really important issue in this culture war.

I would agree. I would agree. I find that the Latinx thing was really interesting. I remember when it started and I only heard it from white people. And someone's like, oh, that's what Latinos like. I go, do they? Like, I mean, I'll be respectful of whatever people want to be called. oh, that's what Latinos like. I go, do they? Like, I, I,

I mean, I'll be respectful of whatever people want to be called. I don't care what people want to be called, but yeah. And I was like, it seems weird, but it's sort of like, they used to do that with gay people that what they really like, Kara. And I'm like, oh, what did they really like? I don't remember. It was like, I forget. I was, I was like, I don't think we're a group first of all. And I don't agree with like those conservative, first of all. And I don't agree with those conservative gay men over there. And I don't agree with the separatist lesbians over there. The inability to understand that all of these groups are complex is very difficult for progressive white people. Yeah, of course. Everybody's an individual. And yet, you just said we aren't a

group. But in some case, you are a group. You want that block to be able to vote together on issues that matter. And what he was describing, this exploitation wedge is kind of coming in and trying to chip away, chip, chip, chip. Yeah, they want to identity politics everyone into their own little silos so they never join. Because I really don't like when there's a conservative person of color, how people attack them. I'm like, let them have their opinion. Yeah, you can be a conservative person of color. It's okay. I literally, I get so like, they become, they get demonized. And some of them really are terrible. I mean, Candace Owens, we're a little worried about. Yeah, but I'm like, oh, what does it have to do? She's, this is her, like kind of thing. So,

although sometimes I get the implication when I, you know, Peter Thiel and we had a big argument many years ago about gay issues and he was wrong as far as I know. What was the argument? He thought there should, gays shouldn't have special rights. It's in a video that the Wall Street Journal lost, of course, but it exists. Oh, the Flipcam video? Yeah, the Flipcam. I have seen that, yeah. We talked about special rights versus equal rights and I said it's equal rights.

He said it's special rights, but I was like, why do they have rights we don't have? It was just a, you know, I had children and he didn't. So it was a very different, we came from very different points of view. People want to chip away. And there are differences within any segment of the population. And yet, like the wedges are not helpful, whether they come from conservatives or progressives, it is not helpful to the overall cause. I have some poor relatives in West Virginia, and they want to set them against poor people in the city. And I'm like, you have so much more in common with the poor people in the city than you do the rich people

who are trying to make you angry at each other. But isn't that part of the myth of the American dream? Because something shocking to me, when we had Jesse Isinger on from Republica talking about the tax reporting, was the backlash from the kind of Twitterati, the bros on Twitter against this coverage of Elon and others kind of paying minimal taxes. Actually, I think Elon was amongst the better of the bunch, but ordinary citizens are like thinking they're more likely to be Jeff Bezos than themselves. They are, and that's aspirational in the U.S. That's a U.S.

thing, an aspirational. We can all be that someday if only we worked hard enough. And that's not, it's a little true, but it's not really true. I mean, it is true in anecdotes, but it is not true on the aggregate level. Also, the whole idea of, you know, we're helping you against the man. And again, I'm like, you're the man. The man is telling you they're against the man. Well, yeah. And they're sowing distrust in government. Sure. That works for them. They want you to be unhappy and disgruntled. And I think politicians like Representative Gallego were really interesting. And I think complexity is really an important thing. And that's the thing that he and AOC actually do have in common is that they are kind of proof positive of an American dream. A hundred percent. And yet he is not the ASP of Arizona.

He is not. But Carrie Lake is the Carrie Lake of Arizona and the Carrie Lake of America. Yeah. She picked the wrong congressman to fight with. Anyway, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. It'll be an interesting campaign. All right, MAGA queen, why don't you read us out? Today's show was produced by Naima Raza, Blake Nishik, Christian Castro-Rossell, and Rafaela Seward.

Special thanks to Andrea Lopez Cruzado. This episode was mixed by Aaliyah Jackson, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get to be MAGA queen. If not, you get to be MAGA queen. Go wherever you listen to the podcast, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow.

Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more. You know what they say about MAGA queens? No. There can only be one. Okay, she can have it.