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- [00:01]
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- [00:27]
Kat Abu Ghazali
Grocery Outlet, bargain market, foreign.
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Interviewer Jen
The number one priority every American should have is getting to the midterms and electing politicians that are not beholden to the same lobbies that funded Trump and enabled him to get to the White House to rip everybody off, enrich himself to the tune of $5 billion and start illegal wars. And one of these candidates that we have to get elected in Illinois is my friend, Kat Abu Gon la. She is a Palestinian American grassroots congressional candidate running to represent Illinois's 9th district. She is a renter, former uninsured worker, and union representative. Abu Ghazayla is running to bring a new generation of leadership to Congress and to defend democracy, fight for economic justice, and advance a humane foreign policy. Kat, welcome to I hip news again. 24 hours. Are you nervous?
- [01:33]
Kat Abu Ghazali
4 hours. I'm excited. The last week has been insane. You know, it was originally a three way race and now it's a two way race. And APAC is panicking. They are trying new strategies no one's ever seen. They are just throwing stuff at the wall and meanwhile we are knocking doors, calling people and getting out the boat.
- [01:54]
Interviewer Jen
Okay, so now that it's a two way race, it's my understanding that AIPAC is throwing money at a pretty progressive candidate to take away votes from you. And so we need to talk to everybody about this is so important. I think Donald Trump took over $200 million from AIPAC. I mean, that's almost as much money as Elon Musk gave him. So it's clear that AIPAC likes fascism and likes leaders that will commit war crimes. And then you find out that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries also take money from aipac. And then you're like, oh, this is why they're not robustly opposing him. And this is why I think races like yours are so important, because we have to have an opposition to fascism. We just have to.
- [02:47]
Kat Abu Ghazali
Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm under federal indictment. It's because I have been one of the most effective critics of the Trump administration. Certainly my race I'm a researcher and journalist that covered the far right. But as context for our race, this district goes from Chicago up to Evanston, West Tuskokie, and then all the way to Algonquin and Crystal Lake. And originally this was a three way race between Mayor Daniel Biss of Evanston, myself, and then Laura Fine, who was the APAC backed candidate. But both her and Daniel met with AIPAC early on, submitted position papers to AIPAC early on, and AIPAC accidentally pulled the New Jersey 11 where Daniel Biss was critical of Israel, but still happy to fund the Iron Dome, pass federal anti BDS legislation, which he helped pass the first anti BDS law in the country here in Illinois. And then they realized this week that we are tied for first. And that doesn't even count the fact that so many of our voters are people that don't really get polled as much or weighted less in polls. So now they are panicking. They know that Laura Fine's campaign is dead in the water. Daniel Biss is stagnated. Laura Fine has gone down and we are growing. And so they, from Apex perspective, are looking at the lesser of two evils. They have started putting out ads, $100,000 worth of ads for a different progressive candidate in hopes of splitting my vote to get Daniel Biss elected. And as for my own campaign, they have put a million dollars behind attack ads, mailers. We learned about a D money influencer operation this week.
- [04:24]
Interviewer Jen
Oh my God, I heard about this.
- [04:25]
Kat Abu Ghazali
Crazy, crazy. And we still haven't really scratched the surface. I know that there are people that are planning on reporting on this, but the guy that was behind it just won an award for his work on business campaign. And we still don't know who's funding it or who's leading it.
- [04:39]
Interviewer Jen
So obviously this dark money is a problem. But I just want to for the people in the 9th district of Illinois, here's the situation when you start voting for people who take money from the same groups that fund fascists, even though they say, oh, we're pro women, we're pro gay, we're anti war. Here's what it boils down to. Warren Gunnels on Twitter tweeted the following. Netanyahu says to the Trump administration, I need $19.8 billion. Trump approved. HEGSETH I need 1.5 trillion. Trump says approved. Argentina, we need $40 billion. Trump and all the MAGA Republicans approved. And even Democrats go along with this, some of them, and approve it. Qatar, we want an air force base in the United States, no problem. America's always second or third approved to the average Joe in the 9th district of Illinois. If you lose your job and your wife gets cancer and you want Medicaid, what do MAGA pro life Republicans say? And what do Democrats that take money from their same lobbyists say?
- [05:46]
Kat Abu Ghazali
Cat? They say, screw off. You're not my priority. And in our campaign, we are the only campaign in our race to be using our resources to help people. Right now, our office doubles as a mutual aid hub. We have fed and clothed thousands of people across our district. We have ensured that we are showing our values through our actions rather than our words. I was the first person in this race to physically confront ice. I'm sorry. Strong words for Greg Bovino aren't enough right now. Strongly worded letters are not enough. You need to be out on the streets, and it needs to be your first, your first instinct. It can't be something that you're pressured into or you do it once it's politically convenient. We need a fighter right now, and I don't plan to be in Congress for the rest of my life. I. This isn't a promotion for me. I mean, Mayor Biss started his run for Congress just weeks after winning his mayoral race. It's ridiculous.
- [06:44]
Interviewer Jen
All right, so to the people in Illinois, you have all of these entities going. I mean, it's a very controversial race. You have people, you're not controversial, but they're trying to make you controversial because you don't take PAC money, and that's insane. But to the people in Illinois, because when it gets down to it, our local politicians know what's best for us. And all of this foreign influence and domestic influence that helps corporations, which really is there that big of a difference? I mean, doesn't. Don't corporate interests feel somewhat foreign to the American worker and taxpayer? What is the main difference between you and everybody on that ballot? What are you going to deliver for people in Illinois?
- [07:37]
Kat Abu Ghazali
First off, we want to modernize constituent services to ensure that you can get what you need if you lose your job, if you are taken by ice. We want to make sure that we are there to take action immediately and to fill in those gaps. But also we need to be holding everyone accountable, not just Republicans and Democrats aren't even doing that right now. What are we going to. If you can't answer a basic question of whether you would support Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker of the House, when we have seen what his leadership has done, how can we expect you to push the party to the left? And by that, I mean the center. We need a whole government approach. We need to be thinking bigger. We can't just be doing incrementalism and half measures. I am someone that knows how to communicate. I know how to handle the right. It's why I've been deposed by Elon Musk. It's why my work helped get Tucker Carlson fired from Fox News. It's why I'm under federal indictment. And then after we win tomorrow, Tuesday, we are going to make sure that we use our resources to get progressives elected nationwide. It's a new moment. There are some people in my race that I think would be fantastic Congress people in 2014, but it's 2026 and we have to act like it's.
- [08:46]
Interviewer Jen
I completely agree. And I think that a lot of this reminds me this election reminds me of the lead up to Barack Obama winning in 08 and the war became a huge issue. And Obama ended up beating Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the primary because he justifiably battered them for their support of the Iraq war. And here we are. Your generation, my kids generation, is facing the Iran war. So tell us what your position is on this war that Trump has got us into. And by the way, I have not seen a firm, solid, unified resistance from all of the Democrats in leadership. I just haven't seen that. To the contrary, I've seen people like Chuck Schumer talk about has one his main, one of his main jobs. One of my main jobs as senator is to make sure Israel gets all the money they need on the backs of like workingclass Americans. It's obscene.
- [09:49]
Kat Abu Ghazali
We can't even call an ambulance if we get hit by a car, we call an Uber to get to the hospital. And meanwhile we are sending billions to bomb a country that did not attack us. I am against this war. I am against any of this unprovoked military action. We need to be putting our money into the people rather than into bombs. We need to be calling a genocide what it is. And additionally, we need to understand the idea of leverage, whether that's domestically and not caving. The second that things get spicy because Republicans need to suffer consequences for their actions or in foreign policy. The fact that even with the war crimes that Israel has committed with our own tax dollars that my opponent is still willing to fund the Iron Dome violating our own laws. By the way, we are not supposed to send aid to another country if they are committing war crimes. Until we are able to investigate and rectify this and hold those perpetrators accountable shows that he's not serious about protecting the American people or protecting anyone else that's being killed by our weapons.
- [10:58]
Interviewer Jen
Okay. And then lastly, we have. We see that a lot of policy, whether it's Republicans or Democrats, seems to be Israel first. And secondly, I've really seen a rise in misogyny and attacks on women that are very alarming to me because I come from a state where immediately after the decision on Roe, total abortion ban. And then you have an administration where the Secretary of Defense, I refuse to call it, call him the Secretary of War, just for spite, the Secretary of Defense, he basically has done and said all of these very misogynistic things. So you have on the right, you have a party that wants to take away a woman's right to have a private abortion if she were raped, even as a little girl, they want to take that right away. And that right is already being taken away. You have the Secretary of Defense, who his own pastor does not want women to have the right to vote. You have a president of the United States who every single day is demeaning female journalists. And then they rush out these women in the Trump regime that wear these Christian crosses to Christian signal that rode the shoulders of all of the suffragettes and all of the feminist movement to get the very jobs that they have to dismantle women like you and me. And so to the mothers in Illinois who have the comfort of living with a pretty much majority blue state where you have a right to privacy your OB GYN appointments, nobody is trying to take away your daughter's right to get a divorce should she find herself in an abusive marriage. As we get over all of this, the money, and we get over all of this war stuff, there is a sustained attack on women right now. And I personally am very concerned that female voters that may be independent or have always lived with the luxury of a blue state, as a woman from a red state, what's coming for women in blue states next is such a warning. So where do you stand to help the women and the little girls in Illinois of this threat? Because there's so much being thrown at us right now, Kat, that this really gets brushed under the water. But I'm very concerned about the place of women and little girls in the United States of America.
- [13:41]
Kat Abu Ghazali
I mean, me too. And, you know, I grew up in red states, too, just one state south of the one that you grew up in. And there is a reason I don't live there. There is a reason that I live in Chicago, which is where many people are coming as refugees in our own country for reproductive rights, for queer rights, for immigrant rights, for climate change. One in four abortions in the Midwest is done in Chicago and they are coming for us. There's a reason that Midway blitz hit us so hard, because Chicago is used as a boogeyman in the Chicago area. Not only do we need to a codify abortion in our Constitution as a right, the right to your own body, but we also need to lift any restrictions. When Republicans try to turn the conversation into limits based on your pregnancy term, what they are really saying is that on the worst day of your life, in the very rare cases that you have to terminate a pregnancy, six, seven, eight, nine months in, it's that that's the worst day of your life. It's not you just saying, oh, I don't want to have a baby anymore. It is, there is a threat to your life or your child will not make it. And we can't be relying on male judges to decide whether your life is worth it. And we can't allow people in our party to fall for this right wing propaganda about term limits. But additionally, it's not just that we need to codify the Equal Rights Amendment and we need to. This is something I feel very passionately about. Start universal basic income with stay at home parents, which immeasurably skews towards women. This would allow families to have more money in their pockets. It would make sure that people don't have to stay in a bad relationship because they are reliant on their partner for income. And it would make sure that as you get older, as a stay at home parent, you have your own pot for Social Security. Stay at home parenting is the most invisible and unpaid labor and it's absolutely ridiculous how we denigrate it. So this needs to be where we start for universal basic income. We need to ensure we're pouring federal funds into that, into our education system so your property taxes can go down and your child's education is not dependent on their zip code. We need to be paying for universal pre K which helps lower crime rates, which increases your outcomes for every part of your life. Like this. We can have all of this. We can tax billionaires out of existence. We can actually lower working class taxes if we effectively tax the rich in corporations. We are thinking too small. And if we are just going by the Democratic Party line, if we are just going by Hakeem Jeffries line, then we are going to get more and more incrementalism and keep going to the right. And I promise you that I will hold People accountable because that's what I've been doing. Don't listen to what I say, watch what I do.
- [16:36]
Interviewer Jen
Kat. All right. Tell our listeners in this 24 hour push the ones that don't live in your district what they can do to help you and those that do live in your district.
- [16:46]
Kat Abu Ghazali
If you don't live in our district, you can phone bank for us katforillinois.com events that's k a t f o r illinois.com you can also donate at cat for illinois.com. you know we are in this last stretch but we just bought a bunch of new literature because we had so many volunteers come. We were almost out. We each pay our staff. Donating is a great way to help. If you are in the district, please look at my website, katforillinois.com I know that there is a huge disinformation campaign going on about me and you might have heard, you know, who is Kat Abu Ghazali from APAC ads. People are getting hit with them every single minute over here. But look into me, see what we've done. Check out our anti endorsement. See that Laura Loomer, Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson hate me. And you know, vote on Monday. The weather is going to be better than it is on Tuesday. So vote on Monday. I'm number 40 on the ballot. Kat Abu Ghazali, longest last name on there. Cast your vote and if you already have come knock doors for us. Call your friends, tell them to vote too because we can win this right now. We are statistically tied for first and this would be a huge upset that would set the momentum for progressives nationwide. You deserve good things and you don't have to settle. We don't have to settle for the bare minimum. We can have so much better.
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Interviewer Jen
I totally agree with you and I love the look at who has not endorsed you and who cannot stand you. This is my husband. Sometimes he gets so worn out with the news he's like, I just know the Israel policy's got to be messed up because Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham are so for it.
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Kat Abu Ghazali
Exactly.
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Interviewer Jen
All right, Kat. Good luck, listener. Go help this woman. We have to have an opposite opposition party and they're coming for everybody and we have to have an opposition party that doesn't play patty cake with APAC and with fascists and this is the start of it. We need a younger generation of Democrats to take over or we're never going to get past this. Kat, I wish you the very best of luck. Fingers crossed. I'M manifesting, which I've had it with manifesting, but I'm going to do it with you right now that the next time you're on here. It's a congratulations video where we celebrate. Go out, knock doors. You've got this girl.
- [19:04]
Kat Abu Ghazali
Thanks so much, Jen.
- [19:05]
Interviewer Jen
Bye bye.
- [19:17]
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Kat Abu Ghazali
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Kat Abu Ghazali
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- [19:33]
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