Tomorrow - Episode 80: Running with Brianna Wu

Episode Date: February 1, 2017

Welcome back to the new and improved Tomorrow with Joshua Topolsky. This week on the show Josh chats with Brianna Wu, a game developer and congressional candidate in South Boston, who's looking to fight for a better, more technological future. They discuss cyber security, the two-party system, internet etiquette, and that time all the wifi connected appliances tried to take over the world. Oh, and video games! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow, the new and improved tomorrow. I'm your host Josh Wittepolsky. Today on the podcast, we discuss Bernie Sanders, the FBI, and the Internet of Things. But first, a word from our sponsors. The USAAA is passionate about what they do, which is ensuring the financial security of the military community and their families. As an employer, USAAA creates conditions for employees to succeed. USAAA is hiring for customer service reps, designers, developers, insurance, banking, and more.

Visit them online and see over 200 jobs available. It's an organization that provides opportunities for you to collaborate, create, and lead. Find your purpose with the USAAA. Visit usaajobs.com and join the team. Are you ready to take your website to the next level? Whether you're a first-time blogger or an experienced web pro like myself? Hostgator has all the tools you need to create a website that's beautiful and powerful, also like myself.

Hostgator even offers mobile, friendly templates so your audience can easily browse your site on the go. It's everything you need, all in one place, all back by 24-7 expert support. And right now, listeners of this podcast, the tomorrow podcast, get 60% off. Just visit hostgator.com slash tomorrow. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ My guest today is a software engineer and game developer

and is now a candidate for a congressional seat in South Boston in the eighth district and has, I have no doubt many interesting tales to tell. I do. I'm of course talking about Brianna. We'll Brianna. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it. I have so many things. First off, this is, I, you should know that we've been, we've took a hiatus on this show. We're back. This is like the coming back episode. I can think of no better guess to have. Oh, I appreciate it. Because we're in this weird moment where,

I mean, the world seems completely upside down. It's really scary, right? And you have like your experiences like across technology, across politics, dealing with like harassment, like being a voice for, you know for a very outspoken voice, in so many areas, I feel like there's so much of it that's so at the surface right now. So I wanna talk about all of that,

and we're gonna talk about all of it. But the first thing I wanna talk about is, I don't know how much, I don't wanna talk that much. I mean, we'll talk about gamer gay, because I wanna talk about that relationship to what's happening in the world right now. But tell me about how you made this decision, so you're running for a seat in Congress, a gamer gay because I want to talk about that relationship to what's happening in the world right now. But tell me about how you made this decision.

So you're running for a seat in Congress. And you're running against a presumably Republican. No, it's actually, well, he seems like a Republican to me because the anti-Obama care, his anti-women rights, anti gay rights, you know, pro, you know, criminalization of marijuana. Like, I don't, and this isn't the, who's, who's your own apartment? Steven Lynch. He's a Democrat. He's a Democrat. He's a allegedly a Democrat. He's a very, very right wing Democrat. So this is like, isn't this what's happened with Democrats? Is that, I mean, now we see like these sides, we've been

the Democratic party really battling, but it's like, there has been this move, this centrist movement. Yeah. And I think, look, I mean, you can say, some people, I mean, look, I very badly wanted Hillary to win for many reasons. I did too. Though, there's obviously a space there where you say, well, Hillary was very center. I mean, almost conservative in a few other ways.

I think she's a product of that generation of women, right? And I think you have to really acknowledge that she grew up in a time that's very different than today. I will never forget her getting absolutely massacre by the news for saying, you know, I had a career before I married my husband. And people like Connie Chong calling her abrasive,

calling her all of these names. And it's like, you know, she is a product of that era. So I have a lot of empathy. I think might be the word for that. But I also think in that same way, the women of today, we've got to break down new barriers and kind of not play that game, you know? Like we need to speak our mind just like men do. And I think that that will break away

from women they're coming up after us. It doesn't seem crazy to even say, we've gotta be able to speak our mind just like men do. In 2017, this idea that there would be a barrier to that. I mean, I'm probably naive because I was raised like in a home that was like, my family were literal socialists.

Oh wow. Like my great aunt had lunch with Trotsky. And like, you know, they were part of like workers parties. You know, it's like old Russian Jewish family. So, so in my, like in my home, like, it's not like everything was perfectly equal. It's not like my parents didn't come from a generation that was everything was completely lopsided.

But we definitely like, I have had the luxury of being raised amongst like pretty reasonable modern people. I grew up with hyper Republican religious extremists, church three times a week, Mississippi, in Mississippi. You were originally from West Virginia and then you moved to Mississippi? Well, I was born in West Virginia. Yeah, I was adopted. So that's the state where that took place.

And then you grew up on Mississippi. Yeah, I did all the way. It was a really surreal place to grow up looking at my career these days. Yeah, sorry. No, I was gonna say that's something, you know, to me that is, I'm very curious in how you go from like being in a family where you're going to church three times a week. Yeah. To, you know, hardcore feminists.

Yeah, hardcore feminists. And I don't know, I mean, I don't know where you stand on religion a week to, you know, hardcore feminists. Yeah, hardcore feminists. And I don't know, I mean, I don't know where you stand on religion, but like, you know, I think that clearly, like embracing modernity and equal rights. Well, I see the way that, you know, southerners very understandably, I think have a bit of a chip on their shoulder

about the way they're talked about throughout the nation. And it always surprises me. When I tell people I'm from Mississippi and they're like, oh, like it's shocking that engineer could grow up in that background. But at the same time, yeah, I take a lot of pride in having the ability to change my mind about things. And I was very young, I think I was 23. You know, I decided to take a chance

and I moved to DC and I worked for several Republicans there. And, you know, seeing the party up close in the way that it operated, this was when we were going into war with Iraq for the second time. And I saw was rushing there and making shortcuts. And I was like, maybe there's a world beyond what Sean Hamdee and Rush Limbal are telling me there are. Is that who you were listening to before? All the time. Fox News. I've spent so much time listening to Bill O'Reilly. So when you were a teen and early 20s, you were like hardcore, hardcore. Hardcore. You were like a rush. I was all the way.

That's really interesting to me. Well, you know, but I think, you know, you have these ideas put in your head before you can even think for yourself, right? Yeah. And then you get out there in the real world and you learn this just a little more complicated than they said it was. Just a little bit. But there's also, you know, something I really noticed is when Republicans tend to make an argument, they can't do it without attacking somebody. Like let me give you an example, like access to abortion, right? You know, it's because girls are too promiscuous, right?

They're just not careful enough. Like it's the woman's problem there where, you know, access to reproductive health cares a much wider problem. So I started looking at my friends that were making his arguments and I realized it was more fact-based. Now, I I do want to say I think sometimes the left particularly recently doesn't move into the realm of personal attacks a little bit more than I'm comfortable with. But again, generally speaking, I

just started reading books by liberals and I realized that I've been on the wrong side my whole life See that's interesting to me. I mean I Beke like I mean going back to what I was saying about my upbringing like my I mean And I can understand like there is a there is a type of conservative Belief and a set of like conservative ideas that to me seem in some way reasonable like there's Economic you know like national certain national security ideas, certain economic ideas. I'm like, okay, you know,

it's not like one party can have every answer, right? And I think you see in other countries, there are many parties and that are, you're not just like, hey, it's like red or blue, but there's all sorts of colors, right? I think here it's like, we've got our choices. So I accept the idea that there can be conservative thought that is useful and positive and good for people.

But like when you see it expressed in that party, you don't get like nuance. No. You get this like broad... You do. ...you're stroke essentially. They've almost inculcated their base to not consider new facts or new arguments. Like, you know, this is what Fox News does to you. It teaches you that anything the opposite side says is a lie or a trick or new arguments. Like, you know, this is what Fox News does to you. It teaches you that anything, the opposite side says is a lie or a trick or a trap.

And, you know, they've essentially been training their base for 25 years to just ignore any negative information. And we've seen that culminate with Donald Trump. So, yeah. It's striking to me. So, tell me about your decision to run for, I mean, up until, you know, when did you announce that you were running for this? For Congress.

It got out a little quicker than I was hoping to. I'm friends with that dean over at Venture Beat on Facebook. And I was putting together my website. And I forgot that, oh, I'm friends with a lot of journalists on Facebook. I should not be talking about this. So it kind of got out before I was ready. But you just real talk with you. Like, you know, you've built businesses, I built businesses after election night.

I was playing and going back to Boston. We have been working with, you know, you know, venture capitalists on a really bold vision with VR and AR. We basically, we basically seen this research that basically it's building emotional frameworks. So like I have frameworks to detect all these different things in 3D. I'm going to build some frameworks

that would give you tools to figure out what the people using it are thinking with voice and eye movement and body language and all these different things. And I was planning on going back to my studio and working on that expansion. And the worst happened and it was about five days later, maybe six. And I'm in this meeting and we're talking about VC stuff and I just can't even pay attention. And I'm like, what am I working on here?

Like I'm gonna go make pleasant distractions for the next four years while the nation is burning. I can't feel good about that choice. I've got to do what I can. So it's remarkably similar to Gamergate. Like I stood up to that because I saw that, you know, male video game journalists were ignoring my friends being bullied out of our field.

And in that same way, I said, you know, I have a following. I want to model some leadership and I, you know, I'm an imperfect candidate, but I know I can do the right thing and I'm going to go running as this extremely weak candidate in our state. Right. Right. Right. Right. And I think that like, to me, that is, it is so exciting to just think about like a person like you being part of the political process in this country, because when you look at what we have in terms of, in fact, some, I mean, Vox had a, they did a tweet the other

day. I mean, there's a story about the, you know, here's the GOP, here's what they have to say on the immigration ban. Right. And it's like 271, you know, it's like 271 people, 270 old white guys. And it's not just like, okay, well, they're all old white guys. You know, it's like, you have to think about what the kind of depth of knowledge and the way the Venn diagrams are of knowledge, right? And it's like, if they all overlap in the same way, you're not going to get expansion of policy or thought or like come to, I think, the more correct decisions for an increasingly diverse body of people, right?

This is so true. Like with my staff, I'm very intentionally going out and looking for people of color to hire for senior positions because, you know, as a white person, I can watch Black Lives Matter and the way they're treated and watch Ferguson and be a Paul and realize I have a role to change that. But I can never have that perspective, right? And I will be a stronger congresswoman if I can bring in that perspective to my team. So it's not rocket science. Like you feel business is like I have the best people to surround yourself with are people that think differently than you do. Yeah. You've got to do that. No, it's so true.

I mean, one of the most valuable things in the world is actually too. I mean, I literally like an hour ago, we were having an editorial meeting and I was like having kind of an argument with one of my editors. And it's like, it was very much about race and position. And like, you know, and it's like, it's like,

it's like, yeah, we're gonna be better for the stories that we're doing to be able to have a strong perspective that isn't the same as mine, right? Obviously, I mean, you would be a fool. I think anybody would be a fool to try to do anything meaningful in the world that we live in now and not have a diverse set of people involved in that process, right?

But it's not just diversity with race or gender or sexuality. Our Congress is really overpopulated with lawyers. I have respect for lawyers, but I would love to talk about tech policy and how we are absolutely blowing it in every way possible. It is really terrifying, like the Marri-B last year. This shut down huge parts of our internet infrastructure, social media, access to financial institutions, access to news. And Congress effectively just shrugged it this. And just to give your listener some background,

it's a complicated problem. But long story short, part of the problem was internet of things devices being out there. They are sold with extremely poor security measures in a default password that cannot be changed. So people just find these devices online and then turn them into machines that can take down the internet in sophisticated ways.

Now, a Congress that understood that problem would react to that by going, huh, maybe we need to have some sort of mechanism to recall those kinds of devices, since they can destroy our internet, infrastructure. And you had a woman who I hope to serve on a subcommittee with, Marsha Bradburn, a Republican, and she went on and blamed it on Sopa. She blamed it on Sopa. She blamed it on Sopa. This bill that lets corporations like control-free speech and abuse the Mariah botnet for Sopa. And it's like, these are the people that are making a tech policy.

It's crazy. I mean, it's something I see all the time where, I mean, particularly with things that are modern, right? Technology, but you see it all over the government. And you see it a lot in journalism as well, where people are just conflate or allied things in this way that's like, sure, like if you don't know what you're talking about, or if like you want people to be convinced of something that you're interested in when there's another problem over here, I mean, I actually think, like, yeah, that you can do that, but it's actually

the wrong way to proceed, right? I mean, it's actually, in many ways, it is what we're seeing right now with this immigrant ban, with Trump's executive order on immigration, where he cites 9-11 in a document, which happened 16 years ago, 15 years ago, and out of nowhere, we're suddenly having this conversation, trying to solve a problem that at the moment is actually not a problem, and ignoring the podnet as a great example, how much damage can be done with a stronger attack, with a larger attack that really affects like the lives of people in America, versus the likelihood that you're gonna be killed

in a terrorist and a physical terrorist attack, which is like a rounding error chance. Yeah. And so it's funny to see this immediate, I mean, it's all grandstanding, isn't it? Like the integration ban is just like somebody like popping out their chest. It's throwing out, you know, raw meat for their base, right? You know, and like we can look at the stats here and, you know, the radicalization of like the alt-right in gamer-gate.

Yeah. Like that is something that has resulted in violence. It resulted in violence just this week. We're not even talking about that. So it's... Did Trump even make a statement about Canada about the shooting at the mosque in Canada? I didn't see any.

No, I mean, so that's insane, right? So that just put it in perspective. It's like, there's a literal actual terrorist attack on Muslims in Canada. Yeah. And it's like, he's a literal actual terrorist attack on Muslims in Canada. And it's like, he just wants to pretend like there's not another problem that's actually really spreading, which is nationalism that mutates into terrorism. Like that we've had here, I mean, Dylan Roof as an example, right?

And the shooter in Canada is now another example of it. I actually want to talk a lot more about game regate and the alt-right and its connection to the government that is in charge of the country right now. I want to take a quick break for an ad and then we'll be right back, so stick around. Digital products that computers, phones, and tablets are an integral part of our everyday lives. But unfortunately, all that screen time can also lead to digital eye strain, resulting in tired eyes, which I have all the time, actually.

Headaches, blurred vision, and increased sensitivity to light. Thankfully, Chris All, no glare lenses protect your eyes from the glare of digital screens, as well as the harmful effects of blue violet light, helping safeguard your eyes from potential damage. Crisol also gives you the clearest vision possible while offering resistance to scratches and smudges. That means no more fingerprints

after taking your glasses on and off or scratches from cleaning your lenses on your shirt, which I personally hate doing because my shirts are always covered in grease. And because Chris All, no glare lenses take clear and reduced distracting glare, your friends and family can actually see your eyes, not just your glasses, look better, feel better,

and most importantly, be prepared for whatever comes your way with clear vision. Go to crazall.com to learn more. That's C-R-I-Z-A-L. I know you were wondering.com and start living life in the clear. We're back with Brianna Wu. We are talking about a million different things, but we were just saying about cybersecurity. And I wanna talk about Trump and Game of Gate and much of other stuff, but let's talk about

where you see the holes or the problems right now with cybersecurity because it feels like, it feels like it's one of these things where at the moment it takes place, like the botanet attack, right? Everybody, I mean, in our world is like, holy shit, what do we do about this right we talk about it and they don't get it yeah but then but then even people who are very nerdy and

very tacky like that I know it goes away pretty quickly so tell me tell me your your plan well I know the Republicans have like marketed themselves is like you know the the national security expert but you know with Giuliani as their cybersecurity expert. Oh my God. And this is another cash grab for them. Yeah. Oh, that's the worst. That is the worst. It really is.

But like, okay, so seriously, future wars are going to be thought with tanks and submarines and planes less. It's going to be fought with hacking, financial infrastructure and energy infrastructure and news infrastructure. You know as well as I do, this is the future. And we're just not even talking about this. We are ridiculously vulnerable to this. I don't want to get into Android versus iOS thing, but you look at the MeToo app that came

out last week. The Android version is a problem in a way many, many Android apps are. And then you've got the iOS app that also is like calling some APIs in an improper way. Like this is a disaster sending all this information over is just utterly a common event. So frustrated about Android too because I mean, it's like Google, I mean, some ways Google security is excellent, right? There are places where they've done a really great job. Yeah. right too, because I mean, it's like Google, I mean, some ways Google's security is excellent, right? There are places where they've done a really great job.

With Android, it just feels like it still feels like the wild last and we're in 2017, so it shouldn't. Yeah. Well, you know, this is where, like, you and I have a conversation in like the government talking and getting involved with this makes me extremely nervous. But at the same time, I think it's true that when it comes to cybersecurity, the free market cannot solve this because neither the producer nor the consumer is interested in paying for it.

There's a financial incentive to get as much of your information as possible and sell it, and then the consumer just doesn't understand this. We geeks have this attitude like, well, they should just learn better and do better. And it's never, my grandmother's never gonna like understand the permissions for an Android smartphone. I know, I mean, all the time, like I just was talking to a family member of mine and they were like, I got this email and it's,

I'm like, no, don't. I did, there's something, did you open? They're like, yeah, I opened it. It's like, okay, well, you're screwed. Like, that's it. So, you know, as far as I'm aware, no one's ever really set out to say, hey, how can government really, really work on this?

And one of the things I've been playing around with them, like, please understand, just like thinking out loud here, is, you know, I wonder if you had massive grants, like we write huge grants for education, right? Like we say, this knowledge is worth it for us to invest in, so we spend a lot on that. I'm wondering if there was a grant program with the third party foundation, like the Linux foundation, to really develop some extremely strong APIs and really test them, and develop some cybersecurity technology that all of us could use.

Like a really robust, robust set of things. That was like, and that wasn't, didn't have some weird backdoor. Exactly. Exactly. You have to open source every bit of it to really put that out there. But we need really bold vision on this because what we're doing, like if you're an actual engineer and you understand like how your keyboard talks to your computer, how that talks across the internet and like all these protocols

they're like strung together with duct tape. I mean, it's vulnerable. It's funnable. It's funny to think about the, you know, the botnet attack and the security of those devices. And, you know, this internet of things, is a situation we have and you think about in relation to now. Obviously, you know, we're of things is a situation we have. And you think about in relation to, now obviously, you know, we're not talking about human lives.

Like, I mean, we're not really talking about death, right? But- Well, I mean, there are certainly situations where this escalates. Yeah. But in the most, in the most more recent one, but you are, it is interesting that like, we should have a system where there is,

like, do we know all these devices that talk to one another, all these devices that are connecting to the internet, we have no system to actually look at them and go, like, okay, what's the security like on these things? We have the SEC will test radios, right? And they'll say, like, it's on these bands and it has this much output or whatever, but it doesn't go, like, okay,

what security protocols are you using to protect against this kind of attack? Yeah, I think one way we can move forward, like, look at Ashley Madison, right? Like they've got a ton of data, right? I do, on a regular basis. Okay. Well, look at that situation about story.

Like, right, they've got a ton of user data, they don't salt, they don't hash it, they don't have proper security, and it gets out there on the internet for everyone to see. Insane because Ashley Madison's whole business is predicated on this idea. You're like, you're cheated on your spouse. Like, be super careful.

I think how could they not have made their top priority? Right. Like, let's make sure nobody can ever get any of this information that's in here. I think the only way forward on that is civil litigation. Right? Like, they make cars vastly more safe by doing class action lawsuits with cars.

Right. And I think in egregious, in a really mean egregious situations with large companies like Ashley Madison, if that data gets out there, I wanna open them up to civil liability. Cause the only way this is gonna change is when it's more expensive to not hire

those security engineers than it is to hire them and do the right thing. And any engineer out there. The end result is like, okay, well, Ashlamassin loses some credibility. Right. But I don't think Ashlamassin had was worried about credibility

necessarily to begin with. And so there really isn't, I mean, it's funny in this country, but like if it doesn't rise to a court, right, people laugh it off, right? It just isn't taken seriously. Like, and I think particularly on the internet, people don't take that kind of,

I mean, we're so used to having our privacy sort of violated and manipulated. We're so used to having our information be used to sell something or to get, you know, to get you something put in front of you that when you see something like, hey, this totally violated my privacy and my, and has like damaged me in a bunch of different ways.

Not that I, like I understand that like people are like, well, they're actually mad at some people, like they got what, you know, God was coming to him. I think you can't, you really have to say even for the worst situations, you've got to have some level of like privacy and security like protocols in place

that protect individuals. Because if you don't do it in the worst situations, you're probably not doing the best situations and everybody is at risk. Yeah, I say Ashley Massin because it's something you and I, like as tech people know about, but I'm talking like Target.

When they lose massive amounts of credit card data. But they not hit with class action suits. I don't think they were actually. I could be wrong with that. I mean, that's crazy. But you know, now it's so commonplace. Yeah. I mean, how often do you hear about a hack?

I mean, I've gotten, I mean, in the last year, I've probably gotten like six emails from people who were like, we had a security breach, you know? Same here. I think Dropbox had one. Yeah, I got that one. Yahoo definitely had one.

A big one. Adobe had one. Adobe. Yeah, and this is like, these are regular brands that tons of average people use not like Ashley Madison, which is like on the ris A side of, you know. Absolutely. So is that a big part of your policy?

I mean, is that a big part of it? It's not going to be something I campaign on because people in South Boston are not going to go, oh, I want some privacy litigation rules there. But I think it speaks to my credibility as a software engineer because the truth is, it just being really straight with you, Josh, like I've seen the way Congress works up close. And right now when it comes to our tech policy, you've got big companies like AT&T and Verizon, they're handing the legislation they want signed over to the people they donate money to.

And techies don't have a voice. So in the issues I have in Boston are more about building up the tech and biotech industry. Right? Like that's the mean and potato stuff. I'm gonna be talking to people in my district about. But if you're out there and you're listening to this, like we've got to have engineers in Congress. We've, like, this is necessary.

This is like saving the country. This is national security. Yeah, I mean, I definitely think the, I would say that like the, the voices are seem so homogenous in our government right now. And I do think that over time, we've really bastardized the idea of like what it means to like make laws into governed people.

And to be part of this would is supposed to be a system that serves the citizens, right? And it's definitely upside down in a lot of ways. I want to talk about Trump. Obviously, my guess is, I mean, based on what we're just talking about, you're not a Trump supporter. You're not a Trump.

You're not a Trump. Yeah. And so it seems like we're in a particularly rotten place in America right now. I'm really scared. We have, you know, Trump controlling the White House in a way, and with people like Steve Bannon, that seems dangerous, it feels somewhat out of control. I mean, I don't know how close, so you're following, I just am pretty close, so you're following

like that, that's it. Steve Bannon, like this is that or those in charge from Breitbart legitimized vast parts of gamer game. So this is extremely personal. I mean, he's essentially like, in many ways like a major figure in the alt-right and gamer-gate movements, which are linked. I mean, they seem very linked to me. The same people. Exactly. People same playbook, just on a wider scale. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, sort of, like your experience with gamer-gate has been obviously very close. I mean, you dealt with enormous amounts of harassment from these people.

I mean, really sort of violent and vile. Violent, I had to leave my house. They target my company's financials repeatedly. There's the Brianna, the senior studiage day, and then there's the fake Game Regate version of Brianna that they've created. They have people that spend all their time like screwing up SEO searches so this 4chan information rises to the top

and the New York Times does not. It is really frightening stuff. But I have to say this to you, and I've not seen media cover this. Josh, I wanna tell you, at the height of Gamergate, I had two calls with the Obama's White House and we were very serious and they told me they would get serious about prosecuting gamer gate.

And they didn't. I personally blame Obama for Hillary losing, because if we're talking about fraction of a fraction of a difference in the vote, which is why this happened, I believe that Obama hadbama had followed through on Gamergate and the prosecutions there, which we talked about in which they said they were working on.

I believe that this playbook for the alt-right would not have poisoned the entire election. He could have stopped it at the beginning of it and he didn't, and I think if he had, I do believe Hillary Clinton would be president, Steph. I mean, we're talking about difference of what 70,000 votes total, right? It's interesting that you, I mean,

to hear you say that about Game Regate, I mean, it does seem like the kind of techniques, like this kind of mastery of gaslighting and trolling and using like complete fabrications and trying to force those into the dialogue as legitimate arguments has been the cornerstone of how Trump campaigned. And it also is the cornerstone of what gamer gate

and the alt-right has done on the internet. I'm curious to hear your opinions on, I mean, it's interesting that you asked for there to be action taken and that the Obama administration didn't, I mean, I'm not surprised, I mean, Obama was, you know, in no way a perfect president, right? I think there are plenty of places where we can say he failed or did not live up to the expectations or the promises. He was a really good president. He was a great president, but like we can,

I mean, there's for every great thing that he did, you can go like, well, he was drone bombing these people. And it's like, yeah, that's true. Every president has to do something shitty. Like there's no doubt. But the thing about, the thing I wanted to say is, that idea that you wouldn't go after this kind of vile harassment on the internet,

there's something about, and I've been thinking a lot about this, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts, there's something about this idea that what we perceive about what is happening on the internet that we still think of it, we still have this IRL mentality, where like this is real,

what we're doing right now. Right, right, right. And out there is real, but on the internet, but on the internet it isn't real. I get people going, well, there's real life, and then there's like kind of these interesting games you're playing on the internet. We've crossed over into a place where that's real life.

So how do you approach that? I mean, as a lawmaker, how would you approach it as a human being? How do we change that attitude? Well, I think we've got to be really careful when we're talking about the government, having control over the internet. I think we've got to be really careful. We're talking about the government, you know, having control over the internet. I think that's really important. Say one of the most chilling moments with me working with the FBI was when they told me,

up, we're not going to be able to do anything about Gamer Gay unless we expand the Patriot Act. I'm like, oh my God, they did say that to me. They did say, and I was like, you're trying to be professional with them when they're talking to you. I was appalled by that. How does that, I'm curious.

How does that apply? I mean, why is there an ex, I mean, we gave them names of people we investigate. Like Josh, I had every advantage anyone could have with getting my cases prosecuted. How many people out there can go and hire a few different people to investigate the death threats? Yeah. They're getting to categorize them to make that their job to put that out there. We gave the FBI names, addresses, places that could go to subpoena IP addresses, gave them contacts at those tech companies to go through the loop. They just didn't care. You can see in the FBI

report that came out last week, they just completely ignored it. But I think that, you know, I really see this as a diversity problem at the beginning of it. And I'm an engineer. I like to look at problems from 30,000 feet in the air. In the 80s, we saw a year where women just fled computer science. MPR did a great story on this. As a result of that, throughout the 90s and, you know, a lot of the nils, we had these companies start up and our social norms on the internet were set. Don't feed the trolls, it's a very male rule. Just don't do this, don't do that.

All of the etiquette of the internet is essentially dictated by men. Yes, it was. By white men. Right. I think it's interesting if you look at Jezebel's comment policy. It's very different than other areas of that company. So, I think it's a problem where we did not have the voices of the marginalist from the beginning and things like Twitter are set up to be a honey pot for ails, right?

So, we've got to really rethink these paradigms. But I think at the core, I think like a good place to start is when you threaten to murder someone on the internet, I think there does, and it's a credible threat. I do think law enforcement needs to look into that very seriously. Yeah. I mean, what about, I mean, what about doxing? I mean, the practice of doxing people, of swatting people, this act where you are literally psychologically torturing them. I mean, to me, that feels like a crime.

Like, I mean, are there not crimes on the books that like cover this? No. Well, hold on. Danielle Satrane, who's the preeminently expert in the world on this. I'm a friend of hers. There are ways to prosecute it,

but we can make those laws stronger. Catherine Clark is looking to do a federal, make a swatting of federal crime, and I'm very enthusiastically gonna help her get that past if I win. And the same thing with doxing. Like doxing people maliciously to terrorize them. That's clearly like something that's, there needs to be a consequence.

No, it seems insane to me that. I mean, just the physical, sorry, not the physical, but the psychological impact of having this kind of harassment. It's like, you wouldn't, if you were in a room full of people, this is the thing I think about all the time, it's like, listen, if we were in a room full of people and somebody was making death threats or rape threats to you,

there's not a single person in the room or there aren't most people in that room who are a crowded room, who would tolerate it. Yeah. They'd say, you need to shut up, right? Like, you need to step back. On the internet, it's like, oh yeah, that's just how people talk on the internet. To me, it's like this weird thing, but it's like a basic set of manner.

Like a basic set of like, there's a amount of respect that you pay somebody no matter where you are, no matter who they are, like that I learned, and even on the internet. And I've had arguments with people on the internet. Have they ever gotten really nasty? Not really. I know there's a limit to what I would say to somebody because I believe that that interaction is the same as a real interaction,

it seems like an in-person interaction. I mean, is there an education side to this that tackles that? Well, before I tell you the answer, I want to back up for just a second. And you're a guy. So I want to like really, yes, that's very clear from being here in the US. She very consciously alters her career to ways where she's not visible in the public eye and honestly holds her career back a little bit because she's terrified of people going after her children online, which

is an utterly rational fear. So, I just really want to put that out there. When we're talking about this, we're not talking on just the emotional harm, and I know that really well. But we are talking on a system that tells a whole lot of people, if you speak your mind, if you say what you think, if we don't like it, we will destroy you. And a lot of women out there are not, you know, they don't have my personality where I just, I will stand up anyway. Right. This is holding a lot of people back in ways I think a lot of guys don't really think about it.

Right. Well, no, of course, I mean, it's, it's easy to be like, well, why don't you just do this? Yeah. You know, when, when you have the luxury and the luxury and the privilege of always being able to do whatever you want or save it everyone, what? Right. Right. It's interesting thinking about the kind of subtle effects of it, these almost subconscious effects, which is like, yeah, okay, it sucks to be harassed.

But when you alter your behavior and how you talk and what you do as a result of the harassment, there's like, I mean, I feel like the echo effects of that are huge. I'm sort of also like, I'd like to talk because you are like, your background is in games and software development, right? It seems fucking ludicrous to me that this stems from what is, like, I understand gamer gate at like a kind of broad level. I mean, the way I understand it is, it's some form of male frustration about a loss of power. I think, but in the case of game reggae, we're talking about video games.

We're talking about people who identify as I'm into video games, which is a wonderful thing to be into. I think so. But as a way to define your political and cultural and social beliefs, seems like an unusual place to start. Yeah, you know, if you're a Paxi, you'll be there. And I think about this, like, if you go to Pax, prime or Paxi, you're there and they're people selling vendors.

And the purpose of all the merchandise you buy there is to like mark your body to distinguish yourself as a true gamer out there. Like, oh, I played the original Final Fantasy. I know A, B, and C about that. It's like, it's people that, you know, established their identity in games. And look, Josh, I grew up in Mississippi, okay?

Like it was church and football. And for me, I got the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, and I was just gone after that. So I understand, like, basing your identity in that, because I love games very passionately. But it's a flashpoint because you have this group of people that, you know, they feel like they're getting less power in the world, right?

This is why gamer gate spends so much time talking about comments sections. They're furious every time someone kills a comment section because that's their voice. Right. Think about that. That's their voice. So it's, yeah. I mean, I'm having moderated, you know, like the end gadget comments in 2007 or 2008, like, I'm very familiar with like fanboys and you know, fan girls and the culture of

comment culture. Yeah. Right. And how dark you can get. Yeah, definitely. But it's, it's, and I do want to say it makes me really uncomfortable when feminists and some people on the left, like start stereotyping, game or gate people,

it's like, you know, virgins are attacking their looks. And it's like, like if you think attacking a woman's looks is out of bounds, why are you doing it to do? Like it's the exact same thing. I don't understand that. But it's, there's a sense out there with those people

that somehow women already have quality and that the things we're asking for are ridiculous, which is why they fight the stereotype of us instead. So it's identity. But that's sort of getting back to what you were saying, like being a man, being like a white man, for instance, you don't see what you don't experience in a lot of ways, right?

I don't see it as a white woman, right? Like what people of color experience of policing? So it's easy to go like, I don't get it as a white woman, right? Right. So what people of color experience of police are? So it's easy to go like, I don't get it. What's the problem? I mean, I hear this all the time. I mean, you see politicians, not just people, gamer gay people, although our politicians are essentially now gamer gay.

I mean, Steve Bannon is essentially like a gamer. Yeah. You know, and it's like, I mean, I don't know if he is or not, but you know, this, but this idea that it's like, what are women complaining about? Yeah. Like, what are people of color complaining about? And it's like, you of course, like you don't see it because you're not involved in it. You mentioned the FBI gamer gate report.

Can you talk a little bit about that? And what it said and how that is, is not reflective of your reality? Sure, this is really interesting because Gamertgate used freedom of information request to go pull all the FBI records on it. So eventually they ended up putting out this report about Gamertgate used Freedom of Information request to go pull all the FBI records on it. So eventually they ended up putting out this report about Gamergate.

I think it was like two months ago, but the mainstream media just picked it up. And it really shows their complete failure across the board to do anything about it. It talks about some of my threats that I got and some of their weak efforts to get it, but I'm telling you, as someone who I can show you emails of tons of information I sent them,

it's just not there, it was not looked at. So I really think this speaks to the value of freedom of information requests, even though it's gamergate doing it. I think the public is really benefiting from seeing, you know, how they operate and what they did. But the FBI, I mean, it seems like we have some problems, not the problems that Donald Trump

talks about with the intelligence community, but we do have some issues. If you look at the James Comey stuff, with putting out this letter about the emails the week before the election, clearly there's some, I mean, corruption's not the right word, but there's some rod, right? There's this, I mean, the FBI, I mean, how diverse is the FBI? How? I talked to a live agent, so I never talked to anyone

who was on a white male. Yeah, so like, how many of those people are like, oh, I can really understand how bad this might be. Let me really look into it. Yeah, yeah. I think it's crazy to me. I think, I mean. What I expect Donald Trump or Steve Bannon to make the FBI better at investigating game regate. If anything, they'd be like,

tell these women to shut up. This is not worth our time. I don't think they're going to take an accurate view. No, I don't think the man that is Steve Bannon basically legitimized game reg gate and he cost a whole lot of pain for, and there are articles about me are just really the particulars. I read them in laugh, but you know, bright bar. Yeah, bright bar articles. And, but you know, the ones that wrote against some of the other targets of gamer gate, like Sarah Nypark, that really almost destroyed her life.

And it's just, it's BS. I mean, their articles were essentially hit pieces on people, right? It's intensely- Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, No, no, no. You know if Fox News looks good by comparison, something is horribly wrong. Yes, something's off a little bit. I mean, and how much so, how much do you see that influence in the first 10 days of this administration?

And Bannon's fingerprints are all over it. Like we, we obviously see it. Like the NSA stuff. Like the, God, I couldn't even believe this. You know, Bannon had some allegations about him from his ex-wife in a divorce hearing. He'd made some extremely anti-Semitic comments, but his children going to school with Jewish people.

And then you see, they all lives mattered. The Holocaust three days ago, deliberately editing Jewish people out of the Holocaust because it has bad names I mean, fingerprints. I mean, the Holocaust Remembrance Day was omitting Jews from the press release about it and then signing the immigration ban, which is like the thing that, I mean, the immigration ban being signed on Holocaust Remembrance Day in some ways, much more offensive. Yeah.

Like essentially it is a religion ban. Like it's a Muslim ban, which Donald Trump talked about in the campaign trail. I actually was like looking not to ramble, but like I was looking the other day, I'm like yeah, he definitely talked about this being a Muslim ban, right? Like I'm not hallucinating.

And I started to like Donald Trump Muslim ban. It's like the first thing comes up is like a guardian video of him going like, I call for a ban on all Muslims It's not like it was it's still on his campaign website Like people were like oh Rudy Giuliani said it was a Muslim. It's on the website the words the words Muslim ban But yes the words Muslim ban. I mean, this is to me. This is like a trip. So where do we go? I mean to me it seems like we're in such a crisis mode right now. I mean Obviously, it's encouraged like I get very a crisis mode right now. I mean, obviously

it's encouraged, like I get very encouraged about the idea that someone like you is saying, all right, it's one thing to be out and I think a protest has been incredible. And I think like, I'm very encouraged by this idea that the people in this country do have a voice. That's great. But they have somebody like you coming in at the actual level of, hey, I'm a part of the government. I'm not just like somebody who's protesting it or somebody who's suing it, that to me is encouraging. Is that, is the answer, Donald Trump talked about draining the swamp, but is it a different

kind of draining? Is there a different, is it, does it start like this? I guess diversified the swamp maybe. I mean, look. Not as catchy. Yeah, it doesn't really have the guess diversified the swap maybe. I mean, look. Not as catchy. It doesn't really have the same thing. No, really. I have written so many pieces, Josh, over the last few years about Game of Thrones harassment.

I can't point to one policy of this change. I can't point to one arrest. I have given hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of interviews. I can't point to any one thing. This change certainly people are more aware of it. And that's great. But we've hit an asymptote. It's diminishing returns from here. So I think it's great to tweet.

It's great to protest. It's great to talk to friends about this. It's great to have this conversation. It's immense value. And I don't want to downplay that. But ultimately, we're asking people to pull a lever and make a decision on our behalf. It just doesn't seem like,

it's not a ridiculous idea for some of us to run for office ourselves, especially in the house of representatives. The Senate was designed as a stable body where terms are six years long and it's like, seniority really matters. You have to be 35 to be there, which was a lot older, 200 years ago.

Interesting. I didn't know there was a 35 year old. You had to 30. Yeah, it was 25 for the house and a 35 for the Senate. It's cute. It's sort of like an interesting idea. It's a really quaint idea. You're like, you have to be this old to become a senator.

Yeah, no, it's true. But in the house, you have to run for office every two years. The constitutional point of that is to have the feelings of the time reflected and cycle people through quickly. The founding fathers did not want people like, you know, my opponent, Steven Lynch, who's been there for decades almost, right? Right. To just park there and take weak positions and just change with the times and basically hide and not get anything done.

The main thing he's talked about is airport noise and Logan. He's been working on that for like four years. He's like, there's a lot of protests here. He hasn't said anything about the Muslim ban. That's not the way that I was. As a Democrat. As a Democrat, he's not said anything. This is what's so striking to me is,

is how few people who are supposed to be on the other side and don't act like they're on the other side. And look, I mean, and this is at the highest levels, right? I think there's a fine line. I don't think everybody needs to be a radical, but I don't think it's a radical opinion to say like something's wrong with this executive order, right? It doesn't feel like a radical position to take to say, if you really want to ban, if you're worried about countries that produce terrorists, you haven't put any of the terrorists

who have attacked America on the list, that's a problem, right? Any of the countries on the list. If it's about religion, which is really what it seems like, that's unconstitutional, right? And so how is that a, you know, for a Democrat? If that's a controversial opinion, that seems like there's something really wrong with the way we perceive our politicians. So they have thought about so much is the ACA, right? And I support the ACA, and I enthusiastically voted for Hillary, right?

So the ACA is a compromise in and of itself. It starts a Republican bill under Mitt Romney and Massachusetts, right? So very Republican approach to healthcare. We gave them that compromise and they are dismantling it anyways. So to me, I'm sitting here going, okay, they say it was great. We made a lot of progress on that, but why didn't we go in single payer? Like, if we're going to, I think we need to know. There was a half step.

I mean, it got neutered. I mean, as it went up the chain, right? It's like, it started with this like really lofty, okay, this can be great. And I mean, people are mad about, you know, the ACA or Obamacare or whatever you call it. Like, they're mad, but it's like, the Republicans made it way worse.

Like, it didn't start that way. Right. It's bad because people like, worked really hard to kind of, to try to kill it or stop it. Yeah. And as a result, they whittled it down to something that it's not supposed to be. But it did, the sabotage does.

And yeah, I mean, of course Republicans have been obstructionists and saboteurs. The entire time Obama was president, basically, right? After they flipped them in the midterms. Right. And so, to me, it's like daunting though. Now, I feel like we're in a place where, I mean, can one, can your voice matter?

Is it, can it be loud enough? Can it affect the people around you enough to change, you know, this, what feels like increasingly like a dystopic, sci-fi novel? Well, Josh, I can point to four separate women and Massachusetts. I know we'll run for office, in part because of, I've been talking to them, I know we'll run for office, in part because of I've been talking to them,

I've been encouraging them to run, and my campaign is very deliberately not all about me, because they'll just drag me down with personal attacks, right? But if we make this a movement, I'm not talking like some Bernie Sanders, like Boyle, the ocean, idealistic, you know, vision of America, I talk to a really pragmatic approach,

like enough women out there are pissed about how sexist Donald Trump is and more of us run for office. You know, if we get that number from one in five to like one in three in the house, that's a real change if we have more women at the state level. So I think, I really, like, you've got to see this out there

because I do. I have people writing my campaign, like, please give me something to do. I have to do something to stop this. I think this is going to be something that gets more people involved. We saw this after the Civil Rights era in Mississippi, a lot of black people then started running for office. Right. I started speaking for those communities and government.

Right. I was just thinking, as you were talking about, changing the kind of ratio of women, I was thinking, I really would prefer if it was just all women. Like, as a man, I can tell you, I'm distracted, I'm bad at making decisions, I'm my temper sucks. I think most men generally are like,

it's like, it's okay, we don't really need your input at this point. The country is where it's okay, like we don't really need you to input at this point. Like the country is where it's at. Like let's let somebody else take the wheel for a little while. So it's maybe kind of a dream to me. I don't think we can do that anytime soon. Yeah.

Here's what I want to know. And I think this is probably gonna be the have to do the last thing because we're kind of running short on time. But tell me how you go from being like a regular citizen because I have zero clue. Yeah. Your attempt now is to go from being a regular citizen, because I have zero clue. You're attempt now is to go from a person over here, just like you're interested in politics,

you've got experience with various things, you're a business person. Now you're going from that to you're going to be a Congress person, a Congress woman, right? That's it. How do you do that? What do you need to do to make that happen? It's not's it. How do you do that? What do you need to do to make that happen?

It's not that complicated. You've thought some forms of the FEC. You're not sure intention to run. And I think I've got to go to the mall or Fenway a few days and get 3,000 signatures to go on the ballot. So not super-threatening. We have to get 3,000 signatures.

It's something like that. Can you get them digitally or do you have to get them physically? I think we have to go out and do it. But this is great because I'm going to be campaigning anyway. So you have to go out on the street? Someone on my team will have to.

And they're gonna go and they're gonna say, hey, you know, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest,

to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest,

to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, to be say, is there a fee to just like become like a person who's paid? We spent so much money with lawyers. Like we've reawry getting donations. Like we've done very well with fundraising. Right. And it's frightening how much money we've had to pay lawyers. So yeah, I mean, you've definitely got to do that. Like, on my Donald Trump, I take like compliance

with the law very seriously on my campaign. But really, here's just the point. Stephen Lynch's rumored to have a million dollars in the bank all right for re-election because no one's challenged him since 2001. He's been sitting on it. So he's been saying there he's never had a primary challenger in district eight. And he's got a million in the bank already.

The average congressional race costs $1.2 million, Massachusetts is gonna be more like two. And that comes from donors. It comes from donors. Unless you're independently wealthy. Which I'm not. I mean, we do well, we do well. But, you know, I'm really happy if I have to go to my friends at a venture capitalist

or, you know, like, you know, AT&T, and Verizon say, like, what kind of tech policy do you think we're going the same way out? I'll do that. But what we are doing, and I think this is so brilliant, I have never seen a political ad specifically target tech people out there and talk to tech people with really honest language about the issues we care about. Privacy, cyber security, free speech online. Like all these, there's slate of things that it doesn't matter if you're right or left, if you're a techie, you agree on that. We are gonna very specifically target those people with ads.

And my hope is that engineers and techies that read this and see those ads will say, hey, I wanna be the next hot new demographic for people to chase for political donations. Cause if you do that, like you're gonna have more of a voice in Congress. So we're gonna innovate like that. And so, you've gotta raise money.

I do. Do the website. We do, Brianna, we're 2018. Okay, that's pretty straight. It's pretty straightforward. That makes a lot of sense. And so you're raising money costs, you say it's $1.2 million that you have to at least.

At least. Now how many people are gonna to vote in this race? The great question. This is a really interesting question. So last election, 70,000 people voted for Stephen Lynch. That was a presidential year. So then you go, okay, Democrats don't really vote on off years. What's that number?

So you cut 70,000, half, 35. Is it 20? That I've got to get. And then you go, hold on, this isn't even the election. This is the primary before the election. So this is just a, so this is, so he's got the seat, right? Yep. The primary dictates like if you can even run against him,

like for real or explain how this is how this should work. Sure, the primary is if I'll be the Democrat candidate and then because our Republicans not been elected in that slots is 1953, I will pretty much win after that. So then it's just with so, okay, so wait, so is that it then? Well, we'll have to go through the election to keep campaigning. Right. And he'll campaign also. I wouldn't imagine for the. No, he would drop that yeah, so that's it beat them in the primary. You just beat him in the primary. Yeah, okay You're talking you try really don't out think about like in the in the congressional sense like right I don't think about it and like on a smaller scale, but that's really interesting think about this

I can't because I come from the mobile game world, right? I'm thinking about this like user acquisition problem Yeah, yeah, like I go and pay someone $3 to get someone to download my game. How much do I need to go acquire between 5,000 and 20,000 voters? And how big is the, what is the size of the eligible voters in this district? I don't know that number of him, but I mean I know what the massive number is. That's what we're more thinking about that. Right, but the number is like 70,000. That's how many people voted.

That's how many people voted. That's how many people voted. So you need to win the office of the majority there. But, wow, to me now, thinking of it in that way, it's like very, you do actually start to think like game logic, right? You are kind of like, okay, well, how do you map this out? Like how's it?

Just Stephen Lynch have friends at Facebook and Instagram and Twitter that he can talk to about really targeted ads? Like, we're gonna hire a documentary crew and we are gonna target different groups and district eight. The same way I would if I were making a video game and I'd make a different ad for women and a different ad for men, right? We're gonna hyper target those voters on social media

and I'm gonna tell you, Josh, I can shake 10,000 hands. I can go out there disdardating. You're probably getting here. I can have to shake 10,000. Yeah, yeah. So how long? So this goes on for how long for 2018? Two years, a little bit.

Pretty much through the end of 2018. Right, right. Wow. That's really going to be a long, interesting road. And I assume like you'll be talking about this a ton in the next, over the next two years. I've got to. I hope you don't get second hearing it.

So I think people will be very open to a different viewpoint and a different voice. I think, I don't know how you feel, but the mood to me of this country is like people have been woken up and they're like, hey, wait a second, it doesn't matter. If you're apathetic, that doesn't work. Yeah.

You end up with Donald Trump and Steve Bannon running the government, which is really problematic. If I could have been this is probably a good nut to end on, I was in an Uber the other day in Boston, and the person driving me for Donald Trump, and she asked me to say something nice about him, and this is why I would say, politics through my whole lifetime

has been Kabuki Theater, right? Like you've got this ridiculous script that nobody buys and the actor stick to the poses and the audience promises not to laugh. It's not real. It's not real. I see this even people in my district that I deeply respect. Like anything they say goes through three marketing people and it just feels fake. Like Hillary, I supported her, but she felt,

you know what I'm talking about there. There's a lot about all this. I mean, I think what people responded to with Bernie was like, he seemed a little crazy. He seemed like he said some things that weren't that popular to a lot of people, but he also seemed like he actually gave a shit and meant what he was saying. He seems like a genuine person, right?

And I think Donald Trump, for all the damage he's done for our country, I think he's created an environment where, look, you know, Josh, I've listened to rap songs and with dirty words in them before, right? Like a real person. I made, you know, and I think it frees people just real outspoken genuine people to go run for office because you got to be more qualified than Trump. Right, I mean, it doesn't seem like be very difficult, but you are right, like, if there's a nice thing to say about Trump

and, you know, that's a big if. Yeah. You can't deny that there's something... He has a charisma that is, and the charisma is hard to say about such an odious person, but you can tell that at the very least, he wasn't, he's not reading from a script, but he's also not blowing it. When most people don't read from a script, they kind of screw it up, right?

They say something stupid, they put their foot in their mouth. I mean, he did that plenty, but that was like his authentic reality. That's who he is. He's authentic, right? And that's what that person is terrifying. That's one nice thing to say. I really have authentic and I'm looking for authentic and smart and like empathetic. How about just flawed, normal people?

Yeah. I was once reading a psychological thing about what most politicians are. They're not normal people. Like these are people in high school. Decide they're gonna run for office, and they never smoke pot, and they never drink, and they make every decision through their whole life to be this blameless person.

I'm not that. I'm not that. I think, I actually think, what was endearing in many ways about Obama, because he was so young when he ran. It's like, yeah, he smoked, it was all, because he was so young when he ran. Yeah. It's like, yeah, like, he smoked pod and like, was a college kid and like,

you, like, I'm like, yeah, I know people like this. Like, it's not like in the wild, like, to have a beer with this guy sense, but it's like, this person's like a person, you know? Yeah. And I think that goes a long way. And I think that, as we have broken down barriers in what we perceive as like privacy,

like, like, let's be honest, we are more exposed than we've ever been. We are more outspoken than we've ever been. We are seeing more of each other than we've ever seen in history. Yeah. It definitely needs a different approach than like the same, going through the same motions that every politician has always gone through. Right.

And I do think like, even though Hillary had an incredibly strong turnout for her, I mean, she did win by, you know, the popular vote by millions of people. The reality is like, it wasn't like so overwhelming that Donald Trump never had a chance, right? And I think that authenticity is a piece of it, you know? I mean, she was facing a structural sexism with the media coverage of her. I mean, ridiculously, right, like 40 years of sexism, 40 years of tearing her down. I mean, being torn down, if it wasn't, you know, for being too strong, it was being torn down for being too weak about her husband or whatever. I mean, Hillary Clinton deserved more than

anyone and should have been the president, like in my opinion, like there's no question. But I also understand, I understand their disagree with people who are like, well, she wasn't authentic enough. I was like, well, I don't think that's her fault, by the way. She's just a person of a different era. Right. And also like, you know, I'll trade often, I will say this, I'll trade authenticity for competence.

Oh, yeah. You know, like, okay, maybe you're like a little bit of phony, but at least like you know it to say to another world leader so you don't get us into a war. Right. But this is part one of my ring for the house, right? Like I want to run for that. This is this place for me, people like me to start. Yeah.

I hope to grow as a leader there over the next few years. And like my dream would be, I hope one day I'll grow into the level of leader, Elizabeth Warren, which I'm not today. But you know, like this is where I got to start. So, you know, like, I think, I think the best you can ask for sometimes is people to just take the work seriously, and that's what I'm going to do. Well, I think a lot of people are excited. And I personally, like, I'm very excited to watch this. I think you have, I mean, sounds to me like you have a great shot, just based on the numbers. But I think you've, I mean, sounds to me like you've a great shot, just based on the numbers. But I think you've got a great shot

because I think America's in a very different mindset right now and they need, we need like legitimate change in the way our government functions. So, and yeah, good luck. Thank you for coming on and doing this. This is so good, I really appreciate it. And you've got to come back as you're like on the campaign trail. I'll be in New York all the time.

And talk more about like what, how it's going. Sounds amazing. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Well, that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best. But let's be honest, Donald Trump has been president

for like 10 days and it's pretty clear that no one is getting the very best. you