Pod Save America - “The empty National Mall in Trump’s heart.” (July 4th Mailbag)

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

Jon and Dan answer your questions about Trump’s jingoistic July 4th, 2020 strategy, Medicare for All vs. Medicare for America, Ivanka’s foreign trip, and the Sixers free agency moves. Then Texas activist Marcel McClinton talks to Tommy about his decision to run for the Houston City Council right after graduating high school.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, Tommy's interview with Marcel McClinton, a young activist in Texas who just graduated from high school and is now running for the Houston City Council. You might have seen Marcel in the documentary Running with Beto. We met Marcel during the documentary. He is just a phenomenal young talent and got involved in politics because of shootings.

And now he's gone from being an activist to actually trying to run for office as just a high school graduate. And so he's a pretty great guy. So check that out. Also, make sure to check out our new Crooked mini-series, Reclaiming Patriotism. What does patriotism mean? Who gets to call themselves a patriot? And how does politics play into that? Also, make sure to check out our new Crooked Minis series, Reclaiming Patriotism. What does patriotism mean? Who gets to call themselves a patriot? And how does politics play into that? The series will be hosted by Ken Harbaugh, a former Navy pilot and nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ken will sit down with people you've heard of, like Pete Buttigieg, Tammy Duckworth, and Barbara Lee, along with people you might not have heard of, to explore the roles that dissent, inclusion, empathy, and reckoning play in our current understanding of patriotism. Subscribe to Crooked Minis wherever you get your podcasts to listen. It's Ken's fantastic guy. I spoke to him for the series, too. I'm really excited about it, so check it out. Also, we're going on tour again soon. We will be in Denver on July 17th at the belco theater and in

salt lake city on july 18th at the eccles theater the shows will be co-hosted by hysteria's aaron ryan so make sure to come see us live you can still get tickets at crooked.com slash events hey john is there anything big in the world in the news happening that week that we might be able to talk about oh that's right. Bobby Three Sticks finally going to Congress. The Mueller hearings. That's Bob Mueller for those of you who don't follow the podcast that closely. I mean, we didn't give him the nickname. But anyway, yeah, he's finally testifying on that Wednesday.

So we'll talk about it in Denver Wednesday night, and we'll probably talk about it more in Salt Lake on Thursday night. So that should be an interesting week, hopefully. All right, should we jump into our second annual July 4th mailbag? Is it the second annual? I don't even know. Third? I think we've been doing July 4th mailbags since the beginning of time. Since the beginning of time. Forever, we've been doing this okay christina from twitter asks what is going on with this fourth of july trump's extravaganza in dc i realize on the list of amazingly shitty things happening it is at the bottom of the list but it's just so mind-bogglingly ridiculous i agree christina i agree dan what i did i was reading story i was reading stories about this last night, and it started getting me upset.

And it was one of the things that I didn't want to get upset about because there's too many other things to get upset about in the news. So I tried to avoid the whole July 4th thing, and then I actually started reading the stories, and I was like, what the fuck is going on right now? Yeah, it's actually worse than you think it is. I mean, if we had been sitting here maybe at the, I don't know, three years ago, July 4th mailbag, and someone had said, is it possible that Trump would be holding a authoritarian style military parade on the 4th of July from the Lincoln Monument? People would have been like, that's a crazy thing to say, you conspiracy theory loving liberals. But no, that's what's happening. And not only are we trucking tanks from the far regions of the country to come here to fill the giant mall of insecurity inside of Donald Trump, the RNC is also giving away

tickets to donors. So we have a perfect marriage of an event that takes American patriotism and uses it to fuel Donald Trump's narcissism, his authoritarianism, and his corruption all at once. So it's fucking great. Yeah. And look, when we lived in D.C. and Obama was in the White House, the 4th of July in D.C. was a very fun holiday. It was nonpartisan. It was open to the public. There were musical acts from across the political spectrum. It didn't matter, you know,

what party you were from. It was it was just a fun thing to do, a celebration of the country. And now it's basically. Obama didn't go. That's an important point. He was not involved in the fireworks. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. He sort of watched from the White House with his family and there were events at the White House as well. But the official celebration was for the public. This isn't patriotism. This is jingoism. This donald trump feeling the need to roll tanks into washington dc you know where they got the tanks from from fucking georgia man

they transported tanks from from a military base in georgia to dc for donald trump's fucking parade think of all the military personnel by the way that have to have had to like rearrange their plans um they're serving our country and now they have to you know um make extra time to fulfill donald trump's fucking militaristic fantasies here um he's got the all of the military chiefs have to stand next to donald trump while they play uh the different anthems for the different branches of the military whatever it's it's really wild and just the fact that it's like a fucking rnc event that they're like handing out you know as as usual he's grifting like they've doubled the prices at the trump hotel so it's a good thing that the president of the united States is going to make money off of July 4th this year.

Oh, man. I don't know. I don't know. It's certainly not patriotism. I would add this should be added to the list of things that should be investigated for sure. Yeah, probably won't be. We'll send a sternly worded letter. And then when we don't get a response, we'll move on to something else.

Jennifer from Twitter asks, Canadian here. Could you please explain why Iowa is so important? What do you got, Dan? Do you want to start? Do you want me to start? I'll start. I'll start. Go for it.

Okay. So Iowa. Well, obviously, it's the it's first in the nation so it's the first time that people will actually uh choose a candidate they choose it in a caucus and look there's a lot of arguments you can make against iowa and against the caucuses it is a very white state it is a state that is not really demographically representative of the country. Caucuses are often difficult for working people to, you know, participate in. You have to come out at night, usually on a cold, snowy night in Iowa, and you have to sit around for a long time. It's much it takes a lot more work than voting.

It's much it takes a lot more work than voting. So are there all the negatives? I think the positives are it is the it is the closest thing to pure democracy that you'll see in politics, because I think one thing that we have to worry about today in this media age is that campaigns become run on television or online. is that campaigns become run on television or online, and they're run by super PACs who can pay a lot of money for ads. And, you know, all you see of the candidates is their soundbites during debates. And then you see them on television and you see them in some kind of scary attack ad. And that's all you know of a candidate. And that's not a really great way to pick a president. And in Iowa, it forces these candidates in both the Democratic and

Republican primaries, when there is a Republican primary, to travel around the state to all 99 counties, or hopefully all 99 counties, if you get a good campaign, and meet with people and listen to them and answer their questions and campaign door to door. And it is about activism and it is about organizing. And there's an argument to be made that if you can you know the ultimate thing that we're looking for here is not just voting though voting is incredibly important but it's to be active in politics to participate to organize that's how we succeed that's how we bring about real change and so if you're a campaign who can bring people out in a cold Iowa night to organize for you and to convince their

neighbors to organize and to back you, that shows real strength as a candidate and it shows a real organization. And I think there's something worthwhile to that. Yeah, that's right. It's a proving ground for candidates' ability to handle tough questions. It's a proving ground for campaigns' ability to organize voters. Also, it just happens to be that the winner of the Iowa caucus won the Democratic nomination in the year 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2016. And it's important that these things happen in phases, right? This is a little bit like the NCAA tournament, the primaries are. It's like win in advance. And if you win Iowa or do well in Iowa, then you have a chance in New Hampshire and then Nevada and South Carolina. And if you do poorly, your campaign is probably over. So it serves as

a function of winnowing the field. And all of the polling that happens in the states that come after Iowa will be completely upended by what happens in Iowa. So for better or for worse, the best way to win the Democratic nomination is to win Iowa. And the fastest way out of the Democratic campaign is to do poorly in Iowa. Yeah. Clint from Twitter asks, what's the best strategy against Trump and the Rust Belt states, in your opinion? You want to start with this one? Sure. I think it's a two-pronged strategy, which is we need a populist, progressive economic message that takes on the powerful interests that have made this economy unfair to working people, working middle-class people. That is taking on the banks. It is taking on the banks. It is taking on the wealthy who are getting wealthier. It is a progressive populist message. We need a positive

agenda that speaks to that. On the other side, as importantly, if not more importantly, we need an argument that shows that Trump ran as a populist, but governed as a corporatist. That he, despite promising that he's going to stand for working people, his signature initiative was to give a massive tax break to the wealthiest Americans and Wall Street banks and huge corporations, and that he plans to pay for it by cutting your Medicare and making your health care more expensive. So we have to disqualify Trump as a champion of working people. But to do that, you also have to have a place for them to go. It shows that you have an agenda that speaks to the very real anxieties that Americans have in this economy, despite high Dow Jones, high stock market performance, and low unemployment.

Yeah. unemployment. Yeah. I mean, I think the Midwest, I know they don't like being called Rust Belt states, the Midwest, Midwestern states, especially industrial Midwestern states, that's the place to show that Donald Trump is full of shit and has been full of shit for a long time. You know, he promised you better health care. He tried to take it away. He promised you higher wages. He gave tax cuts to billionaires. He promised you that jobs would come back to America. Look at all these factories that are still closing. And has your life really improved because of this man at all? And if not, here are some ideas that may actually improve your life. So vote for a Democrat instead.

I mean, I would look at the campaigns run by Sherrod Brown in Ohio, by Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. These are progressive senators who didn't give an inch when it came to issues of racial justice, social justice, anything like that. Didn't give an inch. And yet their focus was on economic populism. And they were able to win Sherrod, a pretty red state now, Ohio, and Tammy Baldwin in a state that Trump just won by a hair. So I would look at those politicians and those campaigns to emulate what they did. One point I think is important here is that I don't think this was the subtext of this questioner's question, but the debate about what Democrats do in the quote-unquote Rust Belt, Midwest, etc., is often within the context of the political media a proxy for how do you win over white working class Trump voters. And I think it's important to note that we believe that there is not a specific strategy for the Rust Belt. I think this strategy that we just laid out is also the way to win Florida, Arizona, Georgia, Colorado,

Virginia, and every other fucking state in the country. And the point is that you have to have a strong focus on the economy and a focus on working middle class people of all races and all backgrounds of all parts of the country. and that there is not some unique secret Rosetta Stone language that works for white people who live in the exurbs of Cleveland. This is about a progressive populist economic agenda that shows that you are fighting for working people and against the powerful interests who are getting one over on the American people. Yeah, your message should be appealing to white working class Americans. It should also be appealing to black working class Americans and Latino working class Americans. And there is plenty of overlap between all of the demographic

groups in this country, or at least most of the democratic demographic groups in this country, except, you know, the richest assholes that Trump cares about. And your message should be able to reach all of those people. Russell from Twitter asks, how big of a fear should it be that the Democratic nominee wins the popular vote by four, five, six or more million, thanks to closing gaps in Georgia, Texas and other states, but still loses the electoral college to Trump? Hard to even type that without throwing phone across room. Russell, I hear you, man. I just smashed my iPad on the floor. Yeah, we should be very afraid of that. There is a fundamental misalignment in this country where

the population writ large is getting more progressive, more Democratic. And the mechanism by which we pick our presidents, the Electoral College, is getting potentially more Republican, more conservative. The weight given to a set of states whose demographic trends are moving against Democrats goes up because they are moving faster in that direction than states like Texas, Georgia have been moving in the Democratic direction today. So it is very possible that were Trump to win the Electoral College again, that he would lose the popular vote by a margin greater than he did in 2016, which will make for some pretty amazing conspiracy theories coming out of the White House in that second term. But yeah, we should be worried should be worried about, well, like we always say, worry about everything, panic about nothing,

put this on the worry list. I mean, looking at the map, Dan, it seems like, like the states that I feel most focused on are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and then Arizona is sort of like the new swing state that in the Sun Belt actually might flip to us, partly because Kyrsten Sinema won there in 2018. Like, I feel like as we talk about politics and as we talk about Democrats' ability to win, we should think about the electorates in those four states. Who votes in those states? What's the makeup? What do those voters care about?

It seems to me that that's most important. Would agree are you taking florida off that list oh i'm just so fucking sick of florida no i think obviously florida is a 50 50 state florida is always going to be a 50 50 state it's been the one consistent thing about florida for a few decades now is that no whether it's won by a democrat or Republican in a presidential, it's always very, very close. But yeah, I guess I would look at Florida too. Yeah. I mean, the problem we have, and this could change, but in the 2008, 2012 elections, Democrats had dozens of paths to 270 because we could put all these different states on the map, everything from Indiana and North Carolina in 2008 to Florida and North Carolina in 2012.

Ohio and Iowa were competitive states, ones that Obama did quite well in. But if you take 2016 as the measure and you believe, as many do, that Ohio and Iowa have moved firmly into the lean Republican categories. And I'm not 100% sure that's how it's going to be and that a nominee of a certain type could potentially bring them back into the map. But we just have a very limited path. We have to win those three states back from Trump of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. path. We have to win those three states back from Trump of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. And those are probably more likely just based on past history than Arizona, only because it's an unproven thing. But that should be watched very carefully. I also would not take North Carolina and Georgia off that map. Georgia has never been truly competitive. What Stacey Abrams did in 2018

was absolutely incredible. You do run against tremendous voter suppression in that state, which is another problem in Florida as well, where they basically make it impossible to register voters, although Andrew Gillum is putting in efforts to try to deal with that. So I think all those states matter. And you just want to keep as many paths open to yourself as possible so that you don't have to draw an inside straight to win, which is what Trump had to do to win in 2016 and unfortunately did. Mrs. Schwinn from Twitter asks, when will you have Bernie Sanders on for an interview? We're trying. Anytime.

We're trying, Mrs. Schwinn. I actually think that we've made some progress on that front. I believe Tanya has been in contact with his campaign. So I think we're making progress on the Bernie Sanders front. We have made less progress on the Joe Biden front, despite the fact that we all know him and worked with him. Can't seem to get Joe Biden on the pod. Been trying to reach out to his staff not a lot of success so uh if you see joe biden let him know come on pod save america

because we're getting close to doing the full monty of the 712 candidates right you know we are you just interviewed michael bennett was here yesterday uh that pot is up. Great guy. We had a good time with Michael Bennett here. And then we're down to Bill de Blasio and Tulsi Gabbard. And John Delaney. Ooh, sorry, John Delaney. John Delaney will not let you forget his name. He will interrupt you if you do. Yeah, so that's what we're down to.

But yeah, we, of course, would love to have Sanders and Biden on soon, too. Adam from Twitter asks, why is it harder to poll Nevada? And is there a reason it can't be polled and just not aggregated with the other early states if the methodology would be different? Adam asked that question because our first poll with Change Research, we did early states. We did Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. We did not do Nevada because it is hard to poll. Dan, why is is hard to poll. Dan, why is Nevada hard to poll? Well, there have only ever been two Democratic caucuses in the history of Nevada. It started in 2008, then we had another one in 2016. And caucuses are just very hard to

poll because it's very hard to figure out who goes to a caucus because it's a very small percentage of the overall electorate. And the reason why people are more successful at polling the Iowa caucus, although many people are not successful at it. There are a handful like Ann Selzer who was with us in Des Moines during our Iowa show who were very good at it. But there's a long history of figuring out who goes to the Iowa caucus. It's something that people in Iowa know a lot about. A lot of people in Nevada don't know about the caucus. It's just such a new thing. And John Ralston, who is the godfather of media in that state, was critical of us for deciding not to do it, saying you could probably figure it out. And people will probably get closer to doing it, and people should get better at it because it's an important state.

We just didn't want to give a false impression of candidates' strengths in the early states by having a sample that was incorrect from that state when we felt more confident about the ability to get them in the three states. It's hard. There's just not a lot of experience in it. And because it's hard, a lot of people don't try to do it it and so then there's not a lot of track record either yeah um angela from twitter asks how concerned should people be about whether 2020 will actually be a fair and trustworthy election given all we know about foreign hacking and interference and the lack of this administration's effort to protect electoral

integrity very concerned angela very concerned yeah we should we should all be very very concerned because and this is just common sense if you are vladimir putin and you've conducted a completely successful operation against the united states uh in 2016 that resulted in your favorite candidate being elected, probably because of the operation you conducted, the hacking and theft of Democratic emails and a social media campaign. Why wouldn't you try it again? If you're another country that wants to fuck with the United States, why wouldn't you try it? Donald Trump clearly hasn't been doing anything himself to protect the elections. I guess we're hoping that somewhere in the bowels of the federal government, there are people who

are nonpartisan career officials who are trying to protect this nation from another attack on our election. So we hope that's true. We also take some small comfort in the fact that states largely run their elections. And so it's not the province of the federal government. And so hopefully various states are doing whatever they can to protect their elections. But, you know, I'm pretty worried about it. I don't think the media has learned any lessons from 2016 and how to cover, you know, stolen emails or hacked information. They would probably cover it the same way they covered it in 2016 because they don't seem like they've learned any lessons at all.

That's how I feel about that. It is. Those are my feelings as well. It is fucking asinine and backwards that we run our federal elections based on different state laws and that you have a different access to voting depending on what state you're born in. It is so fucking stupid. But the small upside is it creates more hacking targets for the Russians, so it's harder to do than just hacking one place. So take that cold comfort, people.

Janine on Facebook. Can you spend some time talking about the various health care policies in the mix for the 2020 primary? I know there's Medicare for all and Medicare for America. Is Medicare for America a public option? Are there any legitimate other options in the debate right now? My dad likes Medicare for all, but is under the impression that you'd buy supplemental insurance like older people do now is that a thing i just feel like i don't have a good grasp on where we are with the health care debate right now thanks we hear you janine it's very confusing yeah um all right i'll i'll try to start and you interrupt me if i've fucked something up. So let's start with the public option.

And there's various different types of public options or they're called buy-ins. They've been proposed by a lot of people in Congress. They've been proposed by some of the presidential candidates. Basically, what would happen then is on the exchange, which is the Affordable Care Act exchange where you'd buy other health insurance plans that are private, there would be one option that would be a government run plan. And you could buy an insurance plan based off the government plan. You would still pay some sort of premium, some sort of copay, some sort of deductible. It would cover a certain number of services that the government says that it has to cover,

much like the Affordable Care Act has to cover now. And that would be that. It would be affordable. It would probably be more affordable than all of the other private insurance plans. And the hope is that because the public option would be more affordable and more efficient, more people would join that public option. and more efficient, more people would join that public option and it would force the private insurance plans that are also on the market to be better, to be cheaper, to be more efficient because they're now competing with a government plan that is pretty cheap and efficient. So that's the idea for a buy-in public option.

Then you go up to Medicare for America. Medicare for America, and this was a bill introduced by Jan Schakowsky and Rosa DeLauro in the House. This starts to look a lot more like Medicare for All, but it's not quite there yet. What Medicare for America says is everyone who's currently uninsured in the country would automatically enroll in Medicare. They would be enrolled in a Medicare program. enrolled in a Medicare program. Everyone who is currently buying health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, on the exchanges, would automatically be enrolled in Medicare, in a Medicare plan. Every newborn would automatically be enrolled in a Medicare plan. And the reason that is, is because ultimately, this is basically a long, long transition period into full Medicare,

because, and that's why we're having newborns in it. Basically, though, private insurance, some private insurance would still remain. So if you're an employer, you have a choice. You can either continue with your private insurance plan for your employees or you can decide I'm going to enroll the whole company in Medicare as well. So employers have that choice. If you are an employee and you have private insurance with your employer, you can decide either I like my employer's private insurance plan or I kind of like that Medicare plan that everyone else is getting into. So you can decide as an employee

to enroll in Medicare. This Medicare program would cover a whole suite of services. You would still pay some premiums, but it would be a sliding scale. So lower-income people would pay nothing, no co-pays, no deductibles, no out-of-pocket. And higher-income people would pay up to, the highest-income people would pay up to 10% of their income in premiums. And I think it's like $5,000 out-of-pocket, some lower deductible, basically much cheaper than it is now, much more affordable than it is now. And it would be financed, I think, on a like repealing the Trump tax cuts, something like a 5% income tax on people making $500,000 or more and a suite of other sort of high end taxes to pay for it. But it is it comes with a fully financed plan. So that's Medicare for America.

Then you have Medicare for All. In Medicare for All, what happens is the private insurance market is eliminated. There is some insurance, private insurance that you can buy for like cosmetic stuff, but that's about it. You can't get your primary care doctor from private insurance. It's all one government plan. Now, one thing people don't often think about is you do get to keep your doctor because every doctor in the country is now under Medicare for all and so everyone is in the same network everyone is under the same plan there are no premiums no deductibles no copayments Medicare would expand to cover dental vision prescription drugs prescription drugs. So Medicare covers everything. So this is like the full suite of everything you've got. The challenge of this

plan is the financing, because basically Medicare would pay Medicare reimbursement rates to every doctor, every health care provider, every hospital in the entire country. And they're used to getting paid a lot more right now from private insurance companies. And so it would be a difficult transition for hospitals, doctors, everyone else to figure out how to adjust to those new rates. And people who put out Medicare for All plans don't necessarily have a financing plan. Bernie Sanders released sort of a suite of possibilities with various tax increases on wealthy people. But most experts look at this and

say, you're probably going to have to raise taxes even on middle class folks. Now, what Bernie would say is, yes, there might be a tax increase, but you're also not paying healthcare premiums or co-pays or deductibles anymore. So the end it probably washes out did i do that right those those all the way sure it was seemed great i believed every word of it all right it was really good it was a very good succinct explanation and i wish i know this is impossible to do in debates but that like these differences between people's plans the impacts of who they impacted how they impacted people, it's just very hard to communicate in 90-second debate increments. Yeah, it is.

It's a very useful exercise. That was longer than 90 seconds for sure. Okay, Tara from Twitter asks, if Ivanka actually had experience that warranted her a job as advisor to the president, would it still be okay to pop into a conversation among world leaders like that? Like, is it normal for advisors to mingle with heads of state like that at summits? Or just if you're deluded? Go ahead, Dan. Well, John, I also, like Ivanka, was a senior advisor to the president. I was frequently palling around with world leaders. I'd stop in.

I'd see David Cameron for tea. I'd say hi to Abe. Just, no, of course it's not fucking normal. It's weird. And Ivanka Trump is staff. And there was a fundamental difference between staff and principal. And staff, stay away from principals. She should talk to the staff members of those leaders and not walk around pretending like she is royalty which is i know what goes on in her head and what the trump think they are that she has something more than a government staffer but she is a government staffer who just happens to be the daughter of our moron president remember when we were in uh the uk for the state visit and we were at that reception and obama the UK for the state visit. And we were at that reception and Obama introduced us. It was you, me and Alyssa to the queen. Like we almost passed out and didn't know what to say.

Yeah. Cause I had zoned out when the, when the protocol people were telling me whether you were, how you were supposed to like touch or not touch the queen. Right. Right. I was really, I was definitely afraid of having a uh major diplomatic incident and the way that you guys handled that is you and alissa pushed me in front of you both so i had to do it first yeah so it worked out very well it worked out great she's lovely woman very nice meeting her but i was not gonna then uh just you know ask her her thoughts on fucking you know uh trade agreements or whatever whatever a fuck

it was talking about all right casey from twitter asked what do you think the best way to curb propaganda would be obviously you can't just ban fox news and breitbart but you'd think there'd be some sort of punishment for intentionally misleading the American people. Yes, you would, Casey. Dan, I included this question because I really wanted to hear your thoughts on it because I know this is something you think about quite a bit. There is not a simple solution. If we still lived in the world where everyone got their news through television, you could reinstate something like the Fairness Doctrine or some other thing where there are some

standards by which you got access to the public airwaves because that's how people get it. But we now live in the internet age. And so there are an infinite number of outlets by which people can communicate with the public, either as news or fake news or propaganda or whatever else. And so we can't, if you were to somehow, if we were to get convinced enough people, enough companies to stop advertising on Fox News and it collapsed from within, that would be a giant victory for American democracy. But there would be something to replace it because there is a market for right-wing propaganda. And there has been for a long time, even before the Trump era. Rush Limbaugh and these guys got really rich in the 90s doing talk radio, and then they moved it to TV. And now Breitbart and The Daily Caller and all these other god-awful sites are quite successful in the digital age. are being quite successful in the digital age. And so the key is not, I don't think there was a way to get rid of propaganda. So there's a couple of things that I think we should do.

One is media literacy should be something that is taught in schools. And that is not to make somebody liberal or conservative. It's to help people have the skill set to determine what is real and what is not, what is objective and what is subjective. Second, we have to build out an aggressive, progressive media infrastructure along the lines of certainly what you, Tommy, and Lovett are doing with Crooked Media, but there are other entities out there as well. But I think one thing we can take away from the Trump era is that the quote-unquote traditional media, the quote- the quote unquote objective media is incapable of fighting back on propaganda. They are out.

And it's not even that they don't want to or they're incompetent. It's they just do. They cannot do it. The business model, the reach of traditional media is insufficient as long as Facebook and other social media platforms, which fueled by outrage-rigged algorithms, as long as that is the main distributor of news and information in this country, there's no way to compete. So we have to build this aggressive, progressive media infrastructure that can speak to people about facts,

truth, can push back on the conspiracy theory and the lies are being pushed by the right. can push back on the conspiracy theory and the lies are being pushed by the right. We have to have entities who can push content into the Facebook ecosystem to try to shift the conversation closer to the middle. I'm trying to shift it to the left. It is so far rightward right now. We have to shift it to the middle by having more content in there to help get the message out to Democrats. To the extent that there is hope for the future, I do have some hope that one of the problems we have right now is that we're in this weird notch generation of media consumption, particularly for older Americans, which is they grew up in an era where you had every reason to believe that if you saw something on TV, you read it in the newspaper, that it was someone's best attempt at giving you the facts.

No one thought the media was flawless, but that someone was trying to give you the truth. And then all of a sudden, we moved information onto Facebook. And so now you have older Americans who use Facebook at a shockingly high rate seeing information that they would generally believe to be true, because it comes packaged like news, and it is not. Younger Americans, people who grew up with the internet in their lives from the day they were born, are much better consumers of news. They have both the skepticism about things they read on the internet and the skills to fact-check the information to find out whether it's true or not. And so there is some

hope that as the millennial generation and the ones that come after it age into the electorate, the power of right-wing propaganda will diminish. The problem we have is the short term is a misaligned timelines between the melting of the fucking planet and millennials being the primary most dominant only force in politics. Yeah. And I think that's a great answer. And I think it is super hopeful. And the key is that those other outlets have to be there for young people to actually get their information from in a way that is entertaining and interesting and catches their attention. is entertaining and interesting and catches their attention. So, yeah, I'm all for more crooked medias.

And also, you know, you should read, if you haven't yet, that New York Times piece from a couple weeks ago. We were going to talk about it when we were on the road. We didn't have time. That Kevin Roos wrote about sort of these right-wing YouTubers who are spreading all kinds of propaganda and sort of radicalizing a lot of young people. And, you know, the hope in that story is there is now popping up a bunch of sort of left wing YouTubers who are using some of the same memes, language, phrases that the

right wing YouTubers are in order to sort of work the algorithm in a way that sends people to them and their message instead of just the right-wing youtubers and so they are starting to fight back at some of the propaganda and i do think that is like you said that's the future here is that we're not going to ever fully end the propaganda on the right but we have to battle it with our own truth and facts and you know our own message um and so i do think that's the future and, you know, our own message. And so I do think that's the future. And if you want to hear more of this conversation, I'm just going to do a plug now. Listen to the episode of The Wilderness on the media that we did.

There's more Dan. There's Tanya Sominator, who's brilliant, works at Crooked Media, and all kinds of smart people on media and politics talking about what actually has to be done. So check that out. I'm going to say one more thing about this, which I think is important that I left out in my initial overly long spiel, but is every one of us has agency in this, which is we are all on these social media platforms. We all see the fake news or the conspiracy theories or the right-wing propaganda that

is being spread not just to a willing audience. It's not just preaching to the choir because all of our social networks and our social graphs are intermingled. So when you share something, you're going to share something that will be seen by your fellow progressive friends, but also your non-political friends. And I use friends in the Facebook version of that word, your conservative uncle. And so in addition to everyone on their own trying to find ways to fight back, and I'm not saying, I'm not arguing that you

get into a comments argument with your uncle or anyone else. I'm saying instead sharing countervailing content that proves that what was out there is wrong. And it is incredibly important. And I think the urgency for this is this election, is that campaigns or technology firms build tools that would allow you to have at your fingertips information that you can share on social media to your network to respond to Trump's absurdity of day, to show why he said what was wrong, to amplify a message of the day. We have to alter the algorithmic-based conversation in these social media companies, into these social media platforms, so that more can be seen.

But basically, you have millions of Americans who are deeply concerned about the direction of this country walking around with a supercomputer in their pocket and an average of 300 Facebook friends who they could be communicating with on a daily basis. They have an average of 100-some followers, and hundreds upon hundreds of people in their contacts that if we can map that information to the voter file, and then give them information about how to reach the right people there that we can make a huge difference. But everyone can fight back on this. It's not Fox News against crooked media. That's right. It's Fox News and everyone else against the entire country and the entire country has to fight back against democracy loving americans um all right david on facebook asks we saw a lot of conversions on policy during the debates particularly around climate that is

potentially a good thing but how do you see this panning out on the campaign trail is there still a case to be made for a primary climate debate when the candidates don't seem that far apart. So I added this question because when activists were first sort of demand and Jay Inslee as well, sort of demanding a climate only debate of the DNC, I didn't really agree with it because I sort of understood the challenge that Tom Perez was facing there and the DNC was facing, which is once you sanction a debate on one issue, then how do you tell people, oh, we're not going to do a debate on criminal justice, or we're not going to do a debate on women's rights, or we're not going to do a debate on this? And you start going down a path and it becomes very difficult. But I've sort of been persuaded

just the more I thought about it the more i read about it that it might really be a good idea because climb i mean if we really believe that this is an emergency that we have 10 years to drastically change our energy consumption and production in order to save the planet for future generations, then that seems like it is an issue that could potentially touch all other issues. And having watched two debates and having seen sort of the climate sections be not really that great, I actually think it would be fairly interesting and important to have a debate that is only about climate. And not only will that give climate change as an issue a lot of attention,

but finally we'll be out of a debate format where there's like 30 second sound bites on one issue from 10 different people and then we go back and forth. Like imagine two hours digging into one issue. It would be totally different, totally new, but i actually think we could learn something from it you could have a real substantive debate about an issue that is an existential threat to the planet i like like you i was very i was an m very sympathetic to the dnc and it is worth noting that while jay inslee and a couple of us have called for climate debate, most of the other campaigns have been silent about this, even though they care passionately about climate or have very aggressive policies on climate. And it's largely

because debates are stupid. That's unfair. I think they're stupid. But they're a huge time suck for campaigns and candidates, right? So every debate means you lose almost a week of time between getting to the debate, being at the debate, the day after the debate, traveling home from the debate, and all that debate prep. And so the DNC and the campaigns together are trying to limit the overall number of debates. These rules were not particularly well managed in 2008 when we were running in that primary. And we did something like 25 debates and candidate forums, which were basically just debates. And so the DNC tried to fix that in 2016. They obviously went overboard in doing so, which was a critique the Sanders campaign had.

And I think they were right. And they're trying to find a balance here. Having said that, I have no objection to a climate debate. If you had to pick one issue that I think we could use the 15, 20 million people that such a debate would get to have a conversation about climate, I think that would be awesome. I saw some polling. I think it was polling. It was on Twitter, so I'm sure it's true, that basically a quarter of the viewers

of the debates last month were Republican, which if we could get a couple million Republicans to watch a climate conversation, that's a fucking great trick. If we do this debate, which if the campaigns want to do it and the DNC want to do it, obviously I think that would be great.

I really hope that it is conducted with the questioning done by subject matter experts. Yes. The problem with the climate discussion in the last debate was we did it through the prism of politics. Yeah. What do you tell – and frankly, conservative framing of that conversation. Yeah. do you tell a conservative voter about their utilities going up as opposed to what do you tell young people about the planet fundamentally changing by the time they're 35 or whatever?

And so let's have a real, like, there are a lot of really awesome climate plans. They're mostly, they're similar in scope, but different in detail. And let's have a conversation about the details of that. You know, the hard questions that we're going to have to answer as a society if we're going to get to the right place on climate, the trade-offs that you're going to have to make politically, policy-wise, economically to do that. Like, that's a good conversation. Just simply conducting some sort of bizarre, imaginatory focus group with imaginary swing voters in Ohio is a waste of everyone's time. So Like sure tv it has to be on tv

I don't know. Maybe it doesn't actually have to be on tv. Maybe it can be on the internet people will watch it But yeah, um, I really think it's important that we have subject matter experts. I wish they would do that in every debate I wish we had 10 debates six of them were Issue specific economy health care, civil rights and women's rights or something like that. State of our democracy and the questioners were subject matter experts

who could ask follow-up questions so that people could get a real topic instead of just doing this proxy political conversation around serious issues. I agree with that. All right, Dan. Julie from Twitter asks,

Dan, thoughts on the Sixers moves during free agency? Lost Jimmy Butler. What's going on? I'm so glad this question came. And I refuse to acknowledge that, quote unquote, Julie is my burner account, but yes. So as I treated Sixers free agency

much like I treat politics, which was, I was dark. You're always pessim I treat politics, which was I was dark. You're always pessimistic. Yeah, I was very, very pessimistic. And I wouldn't say I panicked, but I came pretty close to panicking in the first hour. In fact, in my head, I both wrote a column calling on the Sixers to fire their front office and rehire Sam Hinckley, the father of the process for all who care about that, and a strategy to convince Brian to post that on Crooked.com. And while I was doing that, the Sixers made a bunch of really smart moves.

And I'm very excited that they brought in Al Horford, they got Josh Richardson, and they did – and what I think is interesting about it, and most of you have stopped listening now, but is that for the last six years, all of the NBA has tried to go in one direction, which is small ball, pace and space. And the Sixers are looking to zig where everyone else has zagged and to go big. And basically, a lot of sports really starts more just like finding the inefficiencies of the system and being bigger's like finding the inefficiencies in the system and being bigger and stronger maybe an inefficiency in the system and so it's great and for all you Sixers fans out there it's very exciting that we get an entirely new team every six months uh so there's my take thank you Julie whoever you may be for asking that question so Dan

you sound a lot happier than our colleague and friend Travis Helwig, who is a Knicks fan. And Michael tells me that we have some audio of Travis just being upset about the Knicks. Kyle, can we play that? I don't like being a Knicks fan. Sports are supposed to be fun, and this isn't fun. And America is bad a lot of the time. And sports are supposed to be like a nice little

break from it all. I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself. I could maybe get into gardening. I could start working with clay, maybe do something with my hands. But I know for a fact that I can't fucking be a Knicks fan anymore it hurts too much Michael

and here's what sucks this is coming out of me because I haven't been able to vocalize it and this is very therapeutic and even if it doesn't go on the podcast I appreciate it if there wasn't these expectations this would have felt great it would have been a normal free agency

for the first time in my whole fucking life. It feels like shit. And I don't want to have hopes up anymore. I don't know, man. I'm just going to be a Lakers fan. It's easier to have to win. And so if 2020 teaches me anything is that sometimes you might have to give up on things in the past, like the New York Knicks and Joe Biden and move to the future like Los

Angeles Football Club and Marianne Williamson. That was amazing. I hadn't heard that before. I love the music, too. That was some sad music. Yeah, when I got to Crooked Headquarters yesterday, my first thing I did was I went over to Travis's desk and treated him as if his favorite pet died. It was really, he's dark. So Brian on Twitter asks,

will Marianne Williamson ride in on a unicorn or fly in on a dragon to the next debate? Brian Boitler, that is not nice to say. Just going to assume who that's from, but that is from but that is just that's not nice to our friend marianne um but probably a unicorn right i don't know sure why not uh gabby from twitter asks who's your favorite democratic primary candidate pet uh liz versus beto's dog etc also if a candidate doesn't have a pet, should they be allowed to run? Easy answer to that last question.

No. Trump is the first president in U.S. history to not have a dog. I think that tells you everything you need to know about the man. Favorite Democratic primary candidate pet? I have to give the edge to Bailey, to Elizabeth Warren's dog, just because I had golden retrievers growing up. I currently have a golden doodle. So I have a soft spot for goldens and Bailey's all over social media. And you know what?

When the Bailey pics show up on Instagram, I smash that like button every time. John, are you saying I can't run for president because I don't have a pet? No, Dan. No. You need to get a pet if you're going to run. John, let me be very clear. There are a limited number of things that Hallie and I think we can keep alive at any one time.

And we have a child and a plant right now. Well, the dog is easier than the child. a plant right now well the dog is easier than the child the dog is like you know it's it's a basically it's basically a month of you know waking up in the middle of the night because the dog shit somewhere and it's pissing in the house and then it's over and then they're great i i i think you are you have no idea what it would be like to have a dog and a child at the same time many people do yeah that's true my kyla loves dogs she is obsessed with dogs you and emily uh very generously gave her a stuffed leo when she was born she also has a stuffed sarah which is the her favorite dog which is our our good friend's dog she stands at our window and looks

at dogs as they walk down the street she She wants a dog. The dog will eventually happen. It would be unfair to put a dog in our current apartment. But either way, I also like Bailey. I like all the pets. I will not choose among them. I even support Beto's turtle. People should have all kinds of pets. Gus the turtle.

What I don't like are politicians. You have to have a careful eye on this because there are politicians who have pets and become politicians. And there are politicians who decide they need a pet for so they can turn their pet into instagram influencers and that's not good it is up to the voters to distinguish between those two groups of people there are some pets that haven't been featured enough like jillibrand has uh some sort of doodle mix there and i've seen it and and i never maple i think maple yeah and i never i never see Maple on her social media. Get Maple out there.

The difference between where you're polling and the lead is more Maple content Senator Gillibrand. I always know that I'm at a disadvantage in any sort of pet dog conversation because not only do you all have dogs they are prominent features of both your personal lives and your

online personas and so I did research for this question and i looked up everyone's dogs and i discovered that jillibrand's dog is camera shy which is why we don't see her very often that's that's fascinating i didn't know that that was and i think the name is i think it's maple jillibrand okay well that's good uh all right final question from uh trevor lee cobb Instagram. What gives you hope about 2020 in the world in general? You want me to? I can start. I can start. I can start.

You go first. I can start because it's been a dark couple months, years. I think that sometimes over the last several months, we have sort of erased the 2018 midterms from our memory, as everything is erased from our memory in this Twitter age that, you know, it's like two days and you forget what happened in the news. But we had a pretty commanding victory in the midterms. Now, just because one party wins the midterms doesn't mean they win the presidency. We have the history is littered with examples of one party winning the midterm and the opposite party winning the presidency.

But what I'm talking about is the energy and activism that we witnessed during the 2018 election. And we had the opportunity to be on the road during the HBO show. We had the opportunity to go to the Crooked Seven districts here in California and do some campaigning. And what I saw on the ground there in terms of people who've been in democratic politics for a long time, working harder than they've ever worked in their lives. And so, so, so many new people, people who've never paid attention to politics, young people who thought that politics was boring, that politics didn't speak for them, that politics didn't mean anything. And then because Donald Trump was elected and they saw it as a national emergency, they decided to drop

everything and do everything that they possibly could to elect Democrats and to stop this madness. And seeing that kind of energy and activism on the ground in 2018, I have to believe that it has not dissipated just because the Democrats won the House of Representatives. That is just part of the job. And so my hope is that that feeling that, the job. And so my hope is that that feeling that, you know, we need to do everything we possibly can knock on doors, register voters, convince our family and friends, give money, you know, do everything we possibly can to get Donald Trump and a lot of these Republicans out of office in 2020. I have to believe that that energy is still there. And that even though we have so many challenges as a party ahead of us, and we're gonna have a lot of fights and a lot of debates, I feel like that feeling that we have to be better than this, and we have to make that so

is still there among a lot of people in this country, and hopefully around the world as well. is still there among a lot of people in this country and hopefully around the world as well. I think that's right. I'd make two points. One is, I think you hit on the most important one, which we taught the pundits and everyone are hand-wringing about the quote-unquote lessons of 2018. And in that telling of history, the lesson is that moderate wins and that a focus on healthcare and taxes and not trump wins and ignoring the immigration issue wins and in some races there is some truth to that but the true lesson of 2018 is that activism fucking works yeah that if people get involved sometimes for the first time and they march and they make phone calls and they register voters we can win and this is the part of that that gives me hope, is that for all of the

complications of politics and voting laws and voter suppression and messaging and polling and tacking right or tacking left or all of that, there is a simplicity of politics, which is you just have to vote. And there are more Democrats than there are Republicans, even in these battleground states that decide the electoral cause. There are more Democrats than Republicans. They just have to vote. More people agree with us than agree with Donald Trump.

Yeah, that's right. And so we just have to turn out. And when you think about it, there are a lot of pumps in the road between here and there, but we don't need Republicans not to turn out. We're not betting on diminished turnout from Republicans to win. We just need to turn out.

We need to turn out and vote. If we do that, we can win the House, the White House, and the Senate and put this country back on a path that looks a lot more like the America that Obama talked about than the one that Trump tweets about. Yeah. And speaking of Obama, if you want to be hopeful over this 4th of July holiday, and you don't want to watch Donald Trump's fucking militaristic jingoism bullshit that he's got going in DC, and you want to really understand what patriotism is and what patriotism can be, go back and read my favorite Obama speech of all time. And I can say that because I did not work on it. It was after I left the White House.

It was the president and Cody worked on it. And it's the speech that Barack Obama gave in Selma to commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday in 2015. And it's maybe the most patriotic speech about America that I've ever read, because it's about all the people who've made this country better. And I was just looking at it the other day before I talked to Ken Harbaugh. And that's real patriotism in this country. So, all right, when we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with Marcel McClinton. On the line is Marcel McClinton. He's a high school senior who is running for Houston City Council in November.

Marcel, it is great to have you on the pod, man. How are you doing? Good. Thanks for having me on. So you are like a bonafide celebrity. I should be thanking you for coming on. We first met because you were in the Running with Beto documentary that we helped produce. You got a shout out from Beto at the debate other night, which is pretty cool. Can you talk about how you came to be in that documentary and how you ended up meeting Beto O'Rourke? For sure. So back, well, I guess

it was last year, the Santa Fe shootings took place. I'm in gun violence prevention activism. I remember someone on Beto's team reaching out to us, asking if they could set up a meeting, you know, set up a meeting with some of the Santa Fe survivors, the students, to talk about gun laws. And I was organizing in Houston and had been to Santa Fe for a few days talking to the community and getting to know that area and trying to find organizers in Santa Fe, given it's a deep red conservative area and they didn't want to focus on changing our gun laws. So we set up the meeting up, and I think that was the same day he had his march in Tornillo.

It was crazy weather down here. He was diverted to Austin, drove three hours from Austin to Houston, and then made it. We met there, and I didn't really want to like Beto at first. I thought he was using this as a publicity stunt and was campaigning in this living room, but he walked in, and we got to talking, and I knew instantly that he was just different and that he wasn't one of the candidates that I had spoken to before, that he was genuinely interested and heartfelt in his responses with us. And so the doc team, obviously, I mean, they were there in that living room, and it was incredible.

And, I mean, things just happened. I got more involved in the campaign and pushed gun violence prevention to be in the forefront of Beto's campaign. And then the doc crew just continued to hit me up to film. And it just became a thing. Yeah. And so it was it was I mean, it was it was a lot of fun. It was it was crazy cool. And then seeing myself on HBO was was was also kind of just crazy. I mean, seeing you on HBO was was so inspiring for me, and so inspiring for all the people viewing because, I mean, well, let's start with some of the work you're doing on gun prevention. You're involved in this very cool group called the Orange Generation. Can you talk about that group? And would you mind sharing some of your personal story about how you became

an activist trying to prevent gun violence? For sure. So in 2016, I was in a shooting. In 2016, I was in a shooting. I was at church teaching Sunday school class to a room full of toddlers, and a gunman ran on a shooting rampage with an AR-15 for like 50 to 55 minutes. And so we were on lockdown, had to hide the kids, and I was in the front lobby underneath this window with like eight other guys. And we were watching him pace our parking lot. My friend Denise Slaughter was shot through her car door, five bullet holes in the headrest,

and then one bullet went in and out of both of her thighs through the car door. And, I mean, it was a really scary time. And I was 14 when that happened. I didn't make the connection between gun laws and activism and what I experienced. And so there was this lull in what, you know, from my shooting to when I first got involved after the Parkland shooting. But during those two years, I mean, shooting after shooting took place, the Parkland shooting, the Pulse nightclub shooting the year before. And I was getting more and more pissed off. And I kept watching on TV, these videos and these folks, these survivors,

talking about just the days after the shooting and how they were feeling and their mental health. And I related to all that stuff so much. And I would watch these news stories, and I would just talk to myself and my mom, and I would talk and just – I would say to her, I would say, you know, these folks don't even know what the the next, you know, month or two months are going to be like. And, and I, you know, I, I was blessed the shooter wasn't even, wasn't in the church doors. But, but I can imagine, you know, what, what, I mean, I, you know, what I would, how I would be like now if, if he was. And so I got

involved after the Parkland shooting, co-organized the, the Houston March for Our Lives. We had 15,000 folks downtown Houston marching in front of Ted Cruz's office. It was an awesome moment, an awesome sight. I was appointed to the mayor's gun task force here. And then, you know, grew my activism after the Santa Fe shooting, meeting Rhonda Hart, Brie Butler, connecting, you know, my Houston activist friends, Ariel Hobbs and Kelly Choi. And we pushed GVP in every campaign that we got involved in. So Lizzie Fletcher is down here, Lena Hidalgo down here, the county judge in Harris County, of course, Beddows. And then we tried to grow that over time and formed a group, Orange Generation,

which now we're just kind of more of a coalition with other organizations. And now with the campaign, I'm doing less work with the org, but still, you know, focusing on my activism as well. But I mean, we traveled on Road to Change, which March for Our Lives put together. It was a cross-country bus tour where we hit every, you know, different city every single day. And we're, you know, holding rallies and barbecues and town halls in these communities to learn more about them and talk to them how they can get engaged and really focus on voter registration and young people getting involved. And so, I mean, through after the

Beto campaign, you know, I was in El Paso November 8th and 9th, and I sat down and had a discussion with Jodi Casey as campaign manager then. And she pushed, you know, Rhonda Hart and myself to run for office and just to do more in our activism the next, you know, this year, 2019. And so I, you know, at that time, I didn't think that I was going to, you know, run for city council or anything, at least not this early. But we kept talking and I had more discussions with other folks here locally. And then it pushed to a city council race. So, I mean, it was a lot happening last year and even more this year, it feels. Yeah, man. I mean, you're a busy guy.

What's amazing is in such a short period of time, you have had so many phases of your activism, right? I mean, you were taking care of others who've been in similar circumstances. You were leading these coalitions. You were marching. You were giving the business to elected officials from both parties. What got you to take this next step, which is to run for office? Yeah, I mean, it was, I mean, you know, partly was just the conversation with Jody Casey and then that last little push. But it was also just, you know, I felt that my city was going through so much, you know, in the last two years. And I didn't see anyone in our city, you know, becoming a true advocate for people. And I was sick and tired of elected folks just, you know, not representing, you know, people as a whole.

They were representing, you know, their businesses or their personal interests or growing their own name for, you know, a title or a whole. They're representing their businesses or their personal interests or growing their own name for a title or a plaque. And I was tired of seeing that happen. And so no one in our city was talking about sex trafficking or homelessness or gun violence until our campaign got in the forefront, got a lot of press, and the issues were starting to get highlighted a lot more. And so I wanted that for my city. And I was sick and tired of just seeing stories on the news here locally of kids getting shot and killed, of unloaded guns, and of our gun shows that don't require background checks here in the city. And then sex trafficking, of course, we're still a hub.

And so all these issues were just pissing me off more and more as the days went on. And it was, you know, I looked at school board, and I looked at city council, and the age requirements, of course, for both. And I saw that, you know, I could do, I think I thought I could do more good running at large. So citywide in Houston, I want to look at the city holistically, you know, look at the big picture when talking about policy. And so that's why I chose to run at large and for city council. So how are people receiving your candidacy? Are you getting folks like who are inspired by the fact that someone that, how old are you, 18, 19? 17. Now I turn 18 like a week. 17. You're 17. You're taking this big step.

Are they inspired by that? Are they saying, hey, maybe slow down, wait a bit? Because, you know, we all watch this debate where Mayor Pete is talking about big generational change, and then you are doing it. Right, yeah. So, I mean, you know, a lot of the reactions we get at first are, you know, holy hell, this is incredible. You know, go you for taking this on. And then they support us up front. But then, of course, there's the fair response, which is, you know, why should I trust a 17 or 18-year-old, you know, to make policy for my city and then to represent me

in city council? And that's a fair judgment and a fair first reaction. And what we've seen is, you know, when I get in front of these people, if it's through social media or digital media or in person at these events and meetings, their reaction usually changes. And they hear me speak and they hear us lay down, you know, policy and our true vision of what Houston can become. And, you know, they buy in and they want to invest in the campaign that way. And so, I mean, sure, you know, some folks are still going to be skeptical,

and, you know, I've gotten the whole, well, come back to me in a year when you voted once or when you've served, you know, one year, and then you'll get my endorsement, or then, you know, you'll get my support for your re-election. And to those folks, you know, we're not writing them off, but we are saying that that's been said for way too long, right, in just America's history. So there's no more time because the issues are happening, you know, now, and they're only going to get bigger and worse. And so if we're not going to invest and trust the next generation of leaders, we can't expect these issues to be solved with the same, you know, cycle of folks who are just in the system always and just want to get higher up in office. of folks who are just in the system always and just want to get higher up in office.

And so, you know, we're hoping that pushing the message of change and, you know, fighting for new leadership and new ideas will resonate with folks in our city. And that's what we see most of the time, which is really rewarding. Because at first, you know, I was worried a bit because, you know, at first we had, you know, two completely different reactions. It was, you know, either, oh, go you or, you know, there's no way in hell I'm voting for an 18 year old, you know, or I mean, yeah. But those are, again, are fair judgments. And we're seeing that kind of change as time goes on. That's amazing. I mean, I've also been really interested and excited by the way you've been able to use social media to reach voters. I mean, I came to social media, you know, as an adult at work, you know, found Twitter and whatever.

Like, I feel like you are part of a generation that grew up using Snapchat, Instagram, like all these services. It's native to you. You understand how to reach people in better ways. better ways. How have you balanced that in the in the potential that comes via social media to reach voters with the reality of being a public person on some of these platforms, and some of the you know, nastiness you have to deal with because of that public profile? Yeah, I mean, you know, to your first point, social media in our generation is huge. It's like what, again, you know, we grew up with. And that's what I think is so important to our campaign, digital and social media.

You know, my opponent, who's 67 or 68 years old, you know, didn't grow up with social media and doesn't know how to use social media to its full extent and doesn't really know how to connect with voters to that degree. And so that's our plus and that's our benefit. You know, I do know how to use social media and we're reaching folks every single day and we're using it really, really skillfully and wisely. I think digital and social media are just the new wave of campaigning. Houston is a huge city and I'm running at large. And so hitting every single event that happens in our city every day is a challenge. But if we can make it seem like we were at each and every event, then we've done our part. So if I can send an intern or a surrogate

to two or three of the events and I'm going to the other two or three and we're posting about all six of them, then we're making a huge impact and we're showing voters that we are being present, we are listening to voters and people at these places. And, you know, I don't think that others or older folks who are in office know how to do that skillfully. And so it's huge. It's kind of the backbone of the campaign other than next month, you know, canvassing. Right. Yeah. No, it sounds like you're running like a smart, lean, efficient campaign. I want to ask you a couple more questions. First of all, just a personal thing.

What's your plan for the next few years? If you win, are you going to enroll in school in the area? What are you thinking in terms of college? Yeah, so I'm taking a gap year this year to run for city council. Well, I'll take two online core classes. But the next year is when I'll enroll here locally, just UH or TSU. I'm still kind of debating between the two. I'm not sure what I want to study. You know, maybe just get my MBA, go into business, but also study, you know,

international affairs or political science. But yeah, so that's the next year and two years. I really wanted to focus on the race in the fall and not the transition into just high school to freshman in college. That's great. Last question. Give me the elevator pitch for the things that you're running on in your campaign. And then if folks like what they hear, tell them how they can support you. For sure. I'll do the 30 second, 45 or five minute. Whatever you want. Give me the 30. Okay. Yeah. So in our campaign, we're focusing on change. And I am that change candidate, being the youngest person to run for local office, citywide office here in Houston, and the youngest black African American to run for local office, citywide office here in Houston,

and the youngest black African American to run for city council in Texas, that change is really important to us. And so we're talking about things like climate change and flooding and homelessness, sex trafficking, and of course, gun violence. And so those issues are all issues that are getting worse and bigger here in Houston. And you can support us in tackling those issues and investing in our campaign by going to www.marcellforhouston.com. That's spelled out F-O-R. And, yeah, help us beat out our incumbent opponent who is ultra-conservative, anti-LGBT, and a veteran bail bondsman in our state, all the things that Houston as a whole doesn't, you know, represent, doesn't represent our city. Our LGBTQ community is thriving and growing. And he got our Equal Rights Ordinance repealed

a few years ago. And so those are those are, you know, the reasons that I chose, you know, his seat to run run for. And I hope that folks listening will feel that energy and that motivation to get involved in our campaign. Hell yeah, man. I mean, the running with Beto Dock was obviously about Beto O'Rourke and his family in that campaign. But I really think it was more about a moment in history when Donald Trump was elected president and people like you and how you responded and how you became more activists and involved in politics. And one of my favorite parts in the whole film is Beto loses and you are at his lost party on the phone with people trying to organize the next big rally to keep fighting for common sense gun control. And I feel like that's

the attitude we all need to have in these very depressing, very trying times is, you know, do what Marcel did and just keep going. So I'm so psyched that you're running. Thank you for doing the show, man. Best of luck. And everyone should check out your website. Check out the campaign because we need a new new generation of leaders. Thank you so much.

I totally agree. need a new new generation of leaders thank you so much i totally agree have a great fourth and you know we'll uh we'll talk to you next week yeah bye guys unless unless there's a coup on thursday then we'll be back at the microphones talk about the coup all right bye guys bye guys