The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Jamaal Bowman Talks 2024 Election Trump Vs. Biden, Nikki Haley, Israel-Gaza War + More

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

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Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed. Congressman Jamal Bowman.

Welcome. What's up, man? What's up? How you doing? Great. 17 days away from early voting, man. Really excited about my campaign. Really excited to continue to build this grassroots movement we've been building for the last

four years. I'm hyped, man. I'm ready to go. You in the fight of your life right now, man. I saw New York Magazine say that you are the most endangered Democrat in America. Damn. Yeah, that's crazy. You know, you can't speak up for black people. You know, you can't speak up for Gaza. You know what I mean? As soon as you

start speaking up for black and brown people, they're going to attack you. That's how white supremacy works. And so, you know, I had the audacity to call for a permanent ceasefire very early on because we heard what they were saying. They're talking about Amalek and cutting off food and water and using white phosphorus and, you know, using genocidal language. And so we call for a ceasefire early. And when you do that, AIPAC is going to attack you. They don't want any kind of criticism of Israel. And so we call for a ceasefire early. And when you do that, AIPAC is going to attack you. They don't want any kind of criticism of Israel. And so we did that. And they've been coming after us.

They're going to spend more money in this race than they have ever spent in history to get the first black man, first person of color in U.S. history out of this seat. Oh, the $2 million, right? No, $2 million a week. $2 million a week. Yeah, by the time we get to the end, it's going to be like $27 million. So even back in October, they were running negative ads against me, trying to bully me into taking the position they wanted me to take. And since over the last three weeks, they've been spending like $2 million a week,

and Election Day is June 25th, so they're going to spend $2 million a week up until Election Day. It'll be the most expensive primary in U.S. history. Is Defeat worth that much? Shit, to them? You know what I'm saying? To them it's worth that much because think about it. Before I was in office, before I was in this seat,

it was Elliot Engel, Congressman Elliot Engel, who was the number one pro-Israel hawk, war hawk, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He was there for 30 years, and right next to him was Nita Lowey, who never had any criticism about Israel. Now you got me coming in. And I'm not against any state or whatever, but it's about human rights. It's about justice.

Like, if you're not taking care of the people next to you and we're not doing the right work for a Palestinian state and a free Palestine, I'm going to call that out. And so to them, they don't want any criticism. They don't want anyone calling it out. And so I've been calling it out from the beginning. But at the same time, you know, our foreign policy and what we're trying to stop there connects to what's happening here.

This is a group, AIPAC, they're a racist organization, first and foremost. 85% of their money go towards targeting black and brown people, right? That's number one. Number two, they got- Is that true? 100%. Okay. And my opponent, who's working with them, who's endorsed by them,

has a record that doesn't reflect doing anything for black and brown people or very little over the course of his career. And so they don't care about black and brown people in my district. They don't care about people at Gaza. They just care about their own power. And so that's why they're coming for it. But we ain't going to let them buy the seat from the people. We decide. The people of Gaza, they just care about their own power. And so that's why they're coming for it. But we ain't going to let them buy the seat from the people. We decide.

The people decide. The black and brown people, progressive people, diverse coalition that we have decide on who's going to win this election on the 25th. Now, George Latimer, I see you up here, right? From what I read, him and AIPPac have said some pretty racist comments towards you. They said they put out a mailer. I haven't seen it, where your skin was darkened. Yeah.

Like, why? Yo, that's standard operating procedure. And that ain't even the worst of it. And they said they wish you had a stroke? Yo, son. He posted something on his Facebook page. People started commenting on this post saying they hope I have a stroke and referring to me as a thug. He did not even comment.

He didn't denounce it. He didn't condemn it. He didn't even take it down until the Working Families Party wrote him a letter, wrote a public letter that put pressure on him. And then he took it down. He said at a black history event in New Rochelle to black people that I take money from Hamas. He said this publicly. And we had to send

our lawyers had to send him a cease and desist letter. Don't talk about me like that or else we're going to go after you. And then he tried to deny and say no, I say take money from supporters of Hamas. Which is also fucked up to say too. Right? So you're saying I take money from a terrorist organization you're endorsed by a racist organization most of their money come from

racist MAGA right-wing republicans they're funded by MAGA republicans same republicans taking our voting rights same people going after affirmative action woman's right to choose same people who supported the insurrectionists this the people my so-called uh opponent democrat opponent his partner went to again go after the first black man uh in this seat and what's your demo what's the demographics in your district it's majority minority uh majority uh black and latino um a very large uh pro israel component right very large jewish well not just jewish i don't want to talk about them as a monolith they're different right because we there's's Jews for Jamal. Shout out to Jews for Jamal out there. They support me tremendously. Jewish Voices for Peace, If Not Now. These are great organizations working on good for our policy. But there is a pro-Israel segment of the district that's very active, very outraged about my position, and they're going to go out and vote. Like this is the ultimate get your ass out and vote race.

Like the black and brown people say, oh, I don't vote this now, whatever. This is the ultimate. This is the ultimate moment to show our power. There are 40,000 black and Latino men in the district who have never voted before. Like they don't even understand. They could have decided governor. They could have decided county executive. They could have decided local mayor and they can now decide a congressman.'ve never voted before why do you think they're not energized like why do you

feel you know why i mean we know why right it's a political system has never really done anything for black people on a big level right like so we are co-sponsor of a resolution calling for 16 trillion i think 12 trillion in reparations for black people my opponent is against that my opponent is like it's not realistic we don't need to be talking about reparations for black people. My opponent is against that. My opponent is like, it's not realistic. We don't need to be talking about reparations for black people at this time. So if you're black in America, for example, and the federal government has never taken up the issue of reparations very seriously, why are you going to be engaged in what's happening in the political process? The difference now is you got someone like me there, first black man, raising the culture, single mom, working class, educator, finally in Congress, speaking the way I speak and governing with the people the way I do. And so usually, like in 2020, we tripled voter turnout from 2018.

Why? Because they had a candidate they could believe in, they could connect with. So they came out. We need those numbers and then some in this race. Because if we come out to vote in big numbers, my opponent doesn't have a pathway to victory. It doesn't matter what money they spend. So this is the ultimate show our power as real progressives, people under 50, people of color, come out.

Early voting is June 15th is the first day. Come out in big numbers and just show our strength. If we do that, we change the trajectory of politics in the district, in the county, in the state, and in the country. What's the biggest thing that you heard about yourself or the biggest lies that they've been trying to tell so that, you know, up here you can tell people what's true or what's not true? Because, I mean, there's so much online that you can just tell is just lies. So what's the biggest thing that you heard about yourself? Yeah. So they're trying to paint this picture out there that, you know, because I voted against a particular bill, I'm against President Biden's agenda. Right. The fact of the matter is I co-wrote me personally, co-wrote one of President Biden's biggest bills, the Chips and Science Act, which is going to bring back semiconductor manufacturing to our country and particularly help us build wealth in black and brown communities.

I wrote that provision into that bill. We pressured Biden to ban ghost guns across the country, and he took action to ban ghost guns, which helped reduce gun violence across the country. I worked with Elizabeth Warren to engage Biden so that he could do something to stop housing costs, rental costs from going up because the rent is too damn high. Anyone who receives federal money, we should be able to regulate rent. So those are just three things. There were many more. At the same time, if the president ain't doing right by black and brown people in our communities or in Gaza, I'm going to say something about that. I'm not going to just be quiet on that and that's good governance right it's good to have that dialogue have that debate hold myself hold me accountable shit we got to

hold each other accountable in order to grow so they're they're taking one vote like one of the ads i saw i've been in there three years now voted a thousand times they're taking one vote and trying to paint me as the devil because I voted a particular way one time the other thing they're trying to say is they're using language like oh we don't like his style oh he's too bombastic right this is like racially coded dog wiggle so language because you know it's black people we're not allowed to say nothing you know I mean before charlamagne there's nobody on radio you know talking like he talking talking how y'all talk. So they're trying to disempower one of my greatest strengths, which is my passion for people and humanity and love and the work that we do.

So that's another thing they're trying to do. And because they have so much money, they can just put it on loops over and over and over again and begin to brainwash people. I'm glad you said what you said. Our people, they see it right away. Like, that's some bullshit. As soon as they see it right away. Like, that's some bullshit. As soon as they see it, they're like, first of all, I know him.

I know the work he does. I know what he's about. I heard him talk a million times. What you're saying is not accurately representing his right. We brought over a billion dollars to the district, and that's conservative. $40 million for gun violence. $88 million for flood mitigation. Investments in climate justice, education, mental health.

Again, targeting particularly the areas that have been ignored, Mount Vernon, Yonkers, the Bronx, New Rochelle, black and brown areas, like always. We targeting them because y'all ain't been doing it. He's been off this 35 years. I've done more in three years for black and brown people than he's done in 35 years. So, like, let's debate that instead of trying to talk about some some wild shit that ain't even

accurate how did that how is all this affecting you mentally good question man listen i try to go to the gym a lot you know weight lifting really helps um i got you know my wife and my kids so after a long day i go home man me and my wife turn on the tv watch something mindless i lay on her and we we just you know we we chill um So, you know, you know how it works. Eat right, exercise. You try to do those things. I ain't had a drink in 2024. So that's helpful as well.

And pray, man. Like, pray and meditate, yo. You know, that's a, and have people pray for me. Like, when I go to church, the church prays for me. The mosque prays for me. That's all very helpful because some of the forces against me right now and against us, man, and historically are evil forces, man. Like they are not here to help us, man.

People in politics, first of all, white supremacy is all about power. This is white supremacy. It's all about power. It's all about control, whether it's foreign policy or domestic policy. And so Congress is under control of big money in politics. Big money in politics is driven by white supremacy. AIPAC is a white supremacist organization. And their big money decides.

Listen, in Congress, let me tell you what moves quickly. Anything related to police, helping police, or anything related to Israel. Those two things move quickly. We write a bill today, we vote on that shit tomorrow. But what about raising the federal minimum wage or universal childcare or affordable housing or workforce development programs? You know, one of the criticisms of Biden is

we passed all these historic bills the first five years, the first two years I was in Congress, but then on the ground, people are still struggling to find good jobs and make enough money and afford their housing, afford their child care. And I always remind people, it's not only Biden's fault. We got to vote down ballot. Who are we sending to the U.S. Senate? Who are we sending to Congress?

What about the state? We send the state and the county billions of dollars. The state and the county decide how they're going to use that money so if if we're not active politically locally they're not going to listen to us they're just going to spend the money how they want to spend it and so that's why we need everybody involved not just for me and my race like i'm good like god forbid i lost i got some talent i get a job i'll be all right it not about me. It's about what we all represent. We represent justice.

We represent humanity. We represent the American dream for real, for real, opportunity. And that's why everybody got to be involved. You know, I wanted to ask you, because you made me think of something. I want you to expound on that more. How does you keeping your position benefit the people in our community? So it's important what we speak about and how we speak about it is very important right the person who was in the seat before me probably never spoke about universal child care as being a north star where we not got to go as a country, right? Never spoke about fully funding our public schools.

And the idea that in my district, if you live in Scarsdale, right, we're spending $10,000, $20,000 more per kid than if you live in the Bronx, right? Like that issue. Not just the issue of reducing gun violence, but like being on the ground with the family when they lose a son and grieving with that family at a vigil, but then saying, we got to fucking do something about this because it's not just about thoughts and prayers. Okay, we got a right to Biden telling Biden to take action on gun violence.

And he did that, right? Young girl stabbed to death in Mount Vernon. Right. Again, not just being with the family and showing up and talking about what's going on, having particularly me, like I'm an educator. I have a doctorate in education. My, my focus has been on trauma. So I know the impact of individual and collective trauma on communities. And I use that to drive policy. So when the young girls stabbed to death, we're not just thoughts and prayers.

It's like, okay, what's the policy solution here? How do we bring in money to target at-risk girls so they have a place to go and something to do that's not just about the normal things we have girls do, QTQ and cheerleading and all that. There's other things. So it's about that kind of thing. So it's about lived experiences. My lived experiences, my professional experiences as an educator,

gives me a perspective that guides how I govern with the people. And so that's critical versus, no offense, 70-year-old white man, career, corrupt, corporate, pay-to-play politician that's partnering with big money, racist MAGA Republicans, and election deniers while saying crazy shit like I take money from Hamas and allowing people to say I have a stroke and call me a thug. Do you want that kind of person in a seat? That kind of person who's literally supporting a genocide in Gaza right now.

So while I called for a ceasefire early, he's never done that. While I called it a genocide early, he's never done that. This individual is working with AIPAC to support a genocide in Gaza, babies being burnt alive in Rafah just a couple days ago. He supports that. Doesn't want to criticize Netanyahu. He supports that. So you want somebody

like that in office or someone like me who spent my entire life dedicated to people least lost and left behind, most neglected, most marginalized. I was in education

for 20 years. When I saw shit wasn't working in education, I opened my own school and ran that school as a middle school principal for 10 and a half years. I saw shit wasn't working

for my kids and community. I said, fuck it, I'm running for Congress. See what happened? Ran for Congress, won. And now we in Congress building power, so we building power. They scared the death of that shit. And so this is why we got to come out in droves for this race and beyond because we got to build power.

All that I don't vote shit, you giving your power to white supremacy. But you said you know, the guy George Latimer is supporting genocide in God. So why support him? People say the same thing about President Biden? Yeah. So how do you feel?

That's when it feels like everybody's talking on both sides of their mouth. That's the toughest question I get, right? And that's why we have been very- You can't say don't support this guy because he supports what's going on, the genocide in Gaza, but didn't support President Biden. Yeah, so that's the number one thing we've been consistently critical of the president on is his response to Gaza and his response to Netanyahu and not doing more to hold Netanyahu accountable. The U.S. government should not be sending another weapon to Israel right now. We should not be sending another dime to Israel right now, period.

And the president said his red line was RAFA. That red line was CROSS. We need to stop sending weapons, period. So I get it. I get how people feel. Only thing I would say to that, and I hate the lesser to evil shit. I hate that. I hate it. I hate it.

However, I was sworn into Congress January 3rd, 2021. Three days later, they attacked the fucking U.S. Capitol. Five people were killed that day. Five people died since then. And if they would have got their way, multiple

members of Congress would have been killed. Trump led an insurrection. And he's on some deportees, Latinos. We're going to do something with the radical left, which is me. You know, Muslim bands. Dictator for a day. Y'all heard of Project 25? Like, they're talking about, like, you know, using military to quell protests.

That's some whole other shit that I don't even imagine what that could possibly be. But because historically we haven't had political power, we're continually left with choices that some people feel aren't great for either side. I could tell you, I've been a member of Congress while President Biden has been president. And when we had control of the House, we did way more governing. We did way more. We passed way more laws, did way more good things. His Achilles heels right now is Gaza. And he needs to respond differently to that.

What did you think about Nikki Haley signing the bombs and all that? I mean, she's a fucking, she's a, I was going to say something crazy. She's a white supremacist man so that's not that's not surprising me again there's people like her in congress who believe in peace through strength and peace through strength means peace for white people and we'll kill and bomb and destroy any other country particularly black and brown if we want to that's what peace through strength mean so signing the bomb is is an ode to the military-industrial complex, and we're strong and we're mighty and no one can defeat us.

It's like many of my colleagues don't understand diplomacy, don't understand peace, don't understand negotiation. When you consider the communities we all came from, we did that shit every day, block to block, to make sure shit didn't blow up to something crazy and no one got killed and people still get killed, but we try to reduce that as much as possible. We do that every day, project to project.

But fucking in Washington, it's like, it's this, you know, Dr. King said, the three ills we got to continue to fight going forward. Racism, capitalism, and militarism. And those are three same things we're fighting right now. We got to continue to fight those things. what do you think about black and brown people a lot of people

saying you know what's going on in gaza and israel ain't our fight it ain't our problem we have so many other problems but nobody comes to our defense we have so many issues that nobody helps us on our issues so why should we dive into what's happening over there so yeah so it's both right it's white supremacy so what's happening in gaza what's happening in the Congo, what's happening in Sudan, what's happening in Caribbean, it's all part of white supremacy. It's about genocide of the natives, enslavement of the Africans, colonization of the continent, destruction of Latino countries to force mass migration, climate justice. It's all under the umbrella of white supremacy. So we should all be serious about defeating white supremacy. But also, we send $3.8 billion to Israel every year.

They're already a wealthy country and already a powerful country. Some have written that they don't even need that $3.8 billion. That $3.8 billion could be coming to Mount Vernon, Yonkers, the Bronx, New Rochelle, all the communities that have been redlined and neglected. What we spend on the military can be coming here. Not all of it, because we got to defend ourselves, but more of it, right? So that's why it matters. It matters.

Like, I don't want my taxpayer money going to commit genocide. I want my taxpayer money coming here to help me have child care, to help me pay for my housing, to help me develop myself in terms of workforce, to help me pay for education, transportation, quality of life. We have the biggest wealth inequality in this country since the Gilded Age right now. And in my district, when you look at every outcome, health outcomes, education outcomes, economic outcomes, wealth,

black and Latino people are at the bottom. Black's way bottom. And so that money that we spend on genocide can come here to help us. What would, as a congressman, what do you think the appropriate- Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series,

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on the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts response to october 7th would have been because also as a congressman you know war is a part of it yeah right you know like so what would the appropriate response have been? Yeah, go after Hamas, not all the civilians. You know what I'm saying? So when we went into Iraq, we went to Afghanistan, you know, first we went in trying to blow everybody up, and then we were much more surgical, much more strategic, and we got bin Laden and we got Saddam Hussein.

Were they more surgical, though? Because even when they had those conversations about what they call them, insurgents? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Insurgents are usually the women and the children. Like, they just say, you know. Correct, correct. Right.

But that's what I'm saying. Initially, we were just going in and killing everybody. That's what Israel's doing right now in Gaza, killing everybody. And they use language like this. The president said there are no innocent civilians in Gaza. Netanyahu said, remember Amalek, which is a biblical reference to a genocidal attack, right? They cut off food, water, use white phosphorus, et cetera, et cetera. You know, right now there's a famine setting in because they're not letting the food get in, right?

So this right here, these are war crimes. And what could have been done is a surgical response to get Hamas. But here's the bigger picture here. Hamas is not a people. It's an idea. It's an idea that festers and nurtures in the minds of people who are historically oppressed. And so we have to deal with the oppression,

not just the people who have been nurtured as a result of the oppression. So Israel has been referred to as an apartheid state. Not Jamal Bowman's words, the UN, Human Rights Watch, other organizations, apartheid state, right? So that means these people are growing up in apartheid, right? There's a military occupation for 75 years in the West Bank. That is against international law. There's settlement expansion into the West Bank of what's supposed to be a Palestinian state, 700,000 people. That is against

international law. There's a consistent detaining of women and children without due process in the West Bank. These are war crimes. And so you got people growing up in that. So it's not to justify anything. We condemned October 7th absolutely outright because killing civilians is wrong. That's a war crime. Absolutely. But you can't condemn October 7th and then not condemn what's happened since then or what happened before that. And so surgical approach in this moment is better. But what's actually better is peace. We've been talking about two state solution.

We're the Palestinian state. I went there like I went to Israel. I went to the West Bank. I've been to Hebron and Ramallah and the place that's supposed to be a Palestinian state. It has 700,000 illegal settlers from Israel on that land. So how are we going to have a state? We're lying. Stop lying to

the people and to ourselves. You want to stop Hamas and stop extremism? Let's have diplomacy and equity and opportunity and stop trying to maintain this white supremacist caste system. What I've heard a lot of pro-Israel people saying is that Hamas doesn't want peace. Like Hamas'

whole mission is to wipe Jewish people off the face of the earth. And that's why we got to deal with Hamas. The other part of that is Netanyahu empowered Hamas over The other part of that is Netanyahu empowered Hamas over the course of years to destabilize the Palestinians. Because Netanyahu doesn't want a Palestinian state. Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to leave. And if they don't leave, he will kill them. That's what he wants, so that they can have all the land. That's what he wants.

And so he's been empowering Hamas to undermine the PLO and the Palestinian Authority so that they don't rise up as quality leaders because then there'll be pressure on him to have a Palestinian state. So Netanyahu is a fucking nightmare in this whole scenario. But the U.S. got to step in.

We are the ones who support. They're our allies. Okay, hold our allies accountable. We want to keep them safe. Let. got to step in. We are the ones who support. They're our allies. Okay, hold our allies accountable. We want to keep them safe. Let's have a Palestinian state. You can have a safe Israel and a safe Palestine. You can fight anti-Semitism and have a free Palestine. And that's what we should be focused on.

It's like we don't have complex, nuanced thinking or even a heart as we deal with these issues. Lead with the heart first and not with fucking missiles why do leftists some leftists say they don't feel like you're critical enough of israel because oh clearly you are and clearly apac thinks otherwise too yeah yeah i mean i don't know man i think there's there's there's purity tests out there you know what i mean where like oh if you if you don't say this word this way in this medium, then you're not critical. But like, again, it's not about Israel, right? It's about humanity, right? It's about who are we as a human race and who are we trying to be?

You know what I'm saying? Are we trying to just be in a cycle of, you know, disagreement, conflict, violence, war, genocide, so that I can have power and you can't? Is that just, we're just going to be in that human cycle for the rest of human existence? Or are we going to, like, put the guns down, come together and figure out a way to share this planet abundantly together? I think we can do that.

I think there's enough space for everyone to have land, home, food, clothing, shelter, and realize their dreams. But white supremacy stops that from happening. And that's why the movie Origin and the book Cast is so powerful because it talks about that caste system. It's not just here. It's all over the place. And it's like, fuck, man.

Can't we just figure out how to live here together without the bullshit? I got one more question about Israel before I ask you something else because I really don't know. Why are both parties so beholden to Israel? Is it because of the money that comes from AIPAC? What is it? I think that's part

of it. I think that's a major part of it. AIPAC writes resolutions and bills for us to vote on. And they also fund the re-election campaign of the majority of members of Congress, Republican and Democrat. That's amazing. That's amazing. And if you do something

against them, they will come after you, very aggressively, like they're doing in my race. When we first got to Congress, one of the things we learned that was happening is Israel wasn't sending vaccines to Palestinians, which is their responsibility as an occupying power.

So we wrote a letter to the consulate. Yo, y'all got to send them vaccines. Like, what are we doing? Consulate, you know, all kinds of people responded online. Crazy. Oh, he's talking about Israel. We met with the consulate, et cetera, et cetera. Good meeting.

It was good. But we co-sponsored a bill with one of my colleagues that only asked the question, what are you doing with our money? We want to make sure you're not using our money to detain women and children unjustly. We just co-sponsored the bill. It didn't have a vote. No one took a vote on it. It definitely wasn't going to pass.

They sent 1,000 letters to my office. We couldn't even do our job for like a week or two. They constantly bombarded our office. They were protesting outside my Mount Vernon office with the Israeli flag. So my colleagues don't want to deal with that, many of them. They're like, yo, I'd rather just chill. Let me keep this cushiony seat. It's a very cushy job, man.

You know what I'm saying? You don't make a lot of money, you know what I'm saying, when you got kids and family. But every night in D.C. there's some lobbyist group throwing a free party with free food

and free drinks in a very nice hotel and you in D.C. look over looking at the Capitol drinking wine you're like oh shit

this is nice you got the cocaine though I have no idea that's why listen they found some in the White House I know it's some in the party allegedly I don't know man listen let me tell you what I do when I'm there I vote no idea. They found some in the White House. I know it's some in the party. Allegedly.

I don't know, man. Listen, let me tell you what I do when I'm there. I vote and I take my ass home. That shit is crazy. How do you feel about the rematch between Biden and Trump? How do you think it's going? I hope this is, you know, again,

I support President Biden, even though I'm totally against everything he's doing in Gaza. I think he's a better president. And as a Democrat, if we have the House and the Senate and he's president, we're going to do stuff. We've heard that before. We have done stuff, though. What are you talking about? We've done stuff.

We heard that before. We saved the economy. Even when Trump was in office, we saved the economy. We heard that last time. But then everything got put, the blame got put on Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. The whole agenda. George Floyd Policing Act. Again, it's a democracy, right?

And so it's interesting because, you know, I saw Brother Rashad Bilal, a clip from him, shout out to Rashad. EYL. EYL. He was talking about Biden and how people are not energized by Biden, and he's right about that. But somebody in the comments was like, yo, we got 30 U.S. Senate races.

Look down ballot. Like,s senate races look down ballot like we gotta look down ballot they don't ever tell us that and i agree with you but that uh when we put biden in office they were saying the same thing right y'all know these senators better than us y'all know who not on the same pages y'all so why why volunteer to lie that you know we're all gonna be in line and then kamala vice president's gonna have to tie break again i'm gonna come back to your question but again it's it, you know, we're all going to be in line and then Kamala, Vice President's going to have to tiebreaker. Again, I'm going to come back to your question. But again, it's, you know, American Rescue Plan, Chips and Science Act, bills we can point to that we passed that we wouldn't have passed if we didn't have all three.

Right? So real results there. But in terms of the 30 down ballots, you get the right senators in the Senate. Now we could do more shit. Also, there's something called a filibuster. Please have someone, I think there's a book called Kill Switch. I'm forgetting the author. Have him here to talk about the filibuster. Because right now what we have in the Senate, this is why we need democracy reform. We should have been got rid of the filibuster. The democracy reform, because it's not like a simple majority in the Senate could pass a bill. You need 60-40. And so what we have is minority rule where 50 senators from smaller states

with less people have as much power than the 50 senators. Right. So that, that's part of it. But in terms of the rematch, like again, support Biden and hope he wins so we can govern together and do more stuff. But what they represent,

both of them, I hope is the end of that kind of politics. Man, I hope so. It's time to evolve into the democracy we can be for everyone, right? And we need new candidates, right? We need Ayanna Pressley. We need, you know, Wes Moore. We need Gretchen Whitmore.

We need Governor Shapiro. Yeah, we need new thinking people. Governor Shapiro, people with new ideas, new thoughts, engage the community differently. And that has to happen in 2028. I hate talking about that now. My hope is whoever wins this election,

I hope it's not Biden. I mean, Trump, who tries to do some stay-in-office-forever shit and we can get him out. Fox News is going to run with that. Yeah. Yeah, you slipped up, man. I hope he's not buying. They're going to run with that, right?

But, you know, because I don't know what he's going to do, and I don't know how the military is going to respond to his orders and, like, real dangerous shit. Right. But whoever it is, if it's four years, like, 2028, it's got to be a whole new America whole new America and a whole new foreign policy. So that's, that's my hope. A couple more questions.

Really just one. They had a story out there that you had a secret YouTube page and you were subscribed to channels that shared like anti-Semitic flat earth and Illuminati conspiracy videos. Is that true? Yeah. I don't even remember that shit. Like whatever the YouTube page was or whatever. I mean, I don't don't know sometimes you like things you see a good video that's like oh that shit was what he said was kind of interesting let me subscribe to that but why can't you watch

that is what i'm saying i'm not because you watch it don't mean that you agree with it it's about creating the the perception that i'm i'm a conspiracy theorist radical black nut job yeah you know that's what they're trying to do. This guy is not for office. He files conspiracy theories and shit. That's what they're trying to do. We should be able to watch whatever we want. I don't even know what page they're talking about. So when I saw that, I'm like, I don't even remember any of this. So Marjorie Taylor Greene's a conspiracy theorist?

Man, but she's in what district in Georgia? She's in parts of Georgia, son. Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yo, like, fucking Hershel Walker almost won that Senate seat. Right. Against Raphael Warnock, who's the most upstanding, one of the most

upstanding people I've ever seen in my life, Warnock. Herschel Walker? Talking about, what is he talking about, zombies and werewolves? Yeah, yeah. He almost won, like, Warnock only won by, like, percentage points. So, Georgia and parts of Georgia is a different beast. I feel like, you know, with us, I feel like we always,

and I'm talking about black and brown people, I feel like we lose so much, right? Because if you look at the presidency before, and to my opinion, my knowledge of what I've seen, it was about what's going on with us, right? We could talk about healthcare. We could talk about, you know, free education. We could talk about all these different things. But now it seems like the last six months the only topics and the

only talking points have been gaza in israel yeah and that just it just seems so so what happens from there because that's that's all they're talking about i mean when when biden you know went to you know morehouse and he was talking the biggest thing that people took out of it was him talking about the gaza in in israel when when these things happen, it just seems like we lose the focus of what, I'm not going to say important, because that is important, but what's also important. That's why America First resonates with people. Yeah, no, 100%. And who's that? Is that Trump's thing?

Yeah, Trump's America First. Yeah, that's Trump's thing and that's Republicans' thing. I mean, they're completely full of shit, but yeah, I know why they say that. You know, yeah, that's why in 2028, even now, though, but that's why in 2028 we need a whole, at the top of the ticket, we need people to constantly bring it back here. Like, the fact that federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. When I first got to Congress, we tried to raise it to $15. We couldn't do that.

It's crazy. The fact that we don't have a federal paid leave program and other developed countries have paid leave. You have a child, you get to stay home with your child X amount of time. I'm really radical with this. I think you should have two years paid leave, personally.

I know the fuck that's right. Because rushing back to work with three months or a few weeks? Yeah, six, eight weeks. That's breaking a sacred bond between mother and child, right? The only problem with that is if it's a small business, it hurts. If it's a major corporation, it's a little different.

But if it's a small business and you got three employees and that's one of your biggest employees that handles things, she can't be out for two years because you would have to pay her and then bring in somebody else. And I don't think a lot of businesses can hold that. But this is where the federal government step in. We wouldn't be calling on the business to do it. The federal government needs to step in and do it. That's why we support universal health care, Medicare for all.

Because small businesses are really hurt by this. They got to provide health care to their employees. It really hurts their bottom line. If the federal government took that from them and had a single payer system, they wouldn't have to do that. And so these are policies that if implemented accordingly, we're going to have incredible economic results. Because now we got generations of children who are not growing up in trauma because their mama is home with them, nurturing them. Or because we have universal child childcare to take care of them. But instead, what we have is a system that's everything based on open,

free market capitalism, and so we don't have enough childcare, so you got kids growing up in trauma, and those are the kids who end up in the school-to-prison pipeline. So if we did it right, not just with that policy but others, you would see economic growth tremendously. You would see a decrease in jail and police costs because you won't need it as much. And you would see a decrease in health care costs because guess what? When your brain develops accordingly because you're not dealing with trauma, you have better overall health outcomes.

Again, this is research. Look up adverse childhood experiences and ACEs research projects done many, many years ago in the medical field. And so we need scholarship and humanity to drive our politics. Right now, we have big money and war and fucking racism driving our politics. I'm glad you said that.

I'm glad you brought up the minimum wage, too. I was in Florida Saturday. One of my book signers, a sister named Kim, she had a broke leg and she was like, this is why Joe Biden is going to have to earn my vote because he didn't fight hard enough

to get federal minimum wage increased and he didn't fight hard enough to pass voting rights. Yeah, yeah. When you actually talk to people, when you actually travel the country and talk to people, you get to really see

what's on people's minds. Well, this is why he and his people got to go talk to people. That's right. You get to really see what's on people's minds. This is why he and his people got to go talk to people. That's right. Right? Because, again, like, I could say, right, because I know a little bit more, not more, but different perspective because I'm in Congress,

I would say the Joe Manchin thing and also the Supreme Court shit, right? Like, and what they've done with voter rights and other bills. But, again, like, I don't want to hear i ain't voting shit the system don't work for me the system don't work for us historically because of racism and all the shit and that's kept us away so we haven't been able to build power we have to build power right now going forward so that we don't have this this dilemma where we're picking two candidates where most people don't like either one of them. We have to build the power in our communities and in our political system so that we are deciding who the next president is, next governor, next county executive, next mayors,

but also the down ballot and in between people. Go back to the stat I gave before. 40,000 black and Latino men in the district have never voted. They could have decided when you, so in the Westchester County, when you decide who the county executive is, that person has a $2.3 billion budget. That person is going to make decisions about that budget. If you are voting engaged in the process, you could then be like,

yo, you better put money over here or we voting your ass out of office. When you go to walk through parts of Yonkers, you think you walked through something a hundred years ago, like go to Yonkers, you think you walked through something 100 years ago. Like, go to Yonkers, YMCA, YWCA, Mount Vernon Boys and Girls Club. It's a travesty that these organizations look like they haven't had any investment in 100 years. And if I go to, again, I love all parts of my district,

where I have Scarsdale, but their YMCA after Hurricane Ida was built again in like a month, two months, because they got the resources to do it, and it's state of the art. Why we got to keep not having state of the art shit? For real. I want state of the art shit for all people, but particularly historically marginalized people

in my district, Mount Vernon, Yonkers, the Bronx, et cetera, but all over the country. Right. Where do they go to support you, brother? Thank you. Bowmanforcongress.com. We need your help. Bowcom we we need your help is 17 days away from early voting apac is spending more money in this race than they have ever spent in history i hold that as a fucking badge of honor because it means i'm fighting for the right thing fighting for freedom justice equality humanity for all people so you can help us out bowman forForCongress.com Click the donate button. Donate a couple

bucks. Whatever you can do. $10, $20, $30. Whatever you can do. But also volunteer button because we need people on the door. So volunteer. We got phone banks door knocking every single day for the next 27 days but definitely before early voting June 15th. Alright.

We appreciate you for joining us. Thank you man. Before you walked in, Jess and I were talking about, you know, Trump pulling up on your district. Yes. And what did you think about that? Especially with Sleepy Hollow and Chef G.

Jess was like, oh my God, he's about to talk for another 10 minutes. No, no, no. I'm going to be quick. I'm going to be quick. He pulled up at your district. What did you think about it?

So it wasn't my district. It was the South Bronx. Oh, South Bronx. So it wasn't my district. I mean, Trump is a fucking clown. Like his whole shit, he's a caricature. And that's how he acts, you know, and that's how he behaves.

So everything with him is a show. It's the data. It's the bullshit. Yeah. And so I didn't really, you know, my sister, shout out to AOC, she went out there and did a counter-protest. And I know other local elected officials did counter-protests. But he said 20,000.

It was like 3,500 there. Like it wasn said $20,000. That was like $3,500 there. Like, it wasn't really $20,000. He's a clown. I hope he goes away, literally, you know, gets held accountable for what he's done. But I just can't wait to move forward from him and MAGA and raise the consciousness of the people, man. Gotcha. Well, Congressman Jamal Bowman, we appreciate you for joining us this morning. Thank you, sir.

That's The Breakfast Club. Good morning. Wake that ass up. In the morning. The Breakfast Club.