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Julie Won on Her Bid for Congress in NY-7
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Julie Won, a Democratic candidate for Congress in…
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Foreign.
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Hello and welcome to Max Politics. This is Ben Max coming to you from New York Law School and its center for New York City and State Law. Thanks for tuning in. Speaking here on the morning of Friday, February 27, 2026, my guest on the show today is Julie Wan, a New York City Council member from Queens and a candidate for Congress in New York's 7th congressional district, which includes parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Charles she is one of three Democratic candidates running in the primary election slated for June, just a few months away in what is a much watched race to succeed the retiring longtime Congressmember Nydia Velasquez. All of New York's 26 and the country's 435 seats in the US House of Representatives are on the ballot this year with control of the House where Republicans currently have a very slim majority to be decided this fall in the general election. Now this seventh Congressional District of New York is heavily Democratic and very progressive and virtually certain to be represented by a Democrat in Congress. But this primary race will help decide who and what kind of Democrat heads to Washington and represents the district after Representative Velasquez's multi decade tenure comes to a close at the end of this year. Along with my guest today, Council Member Juan of Queens, the other two leading candidates in the race the field is a bit bigger than these three leading candidates in the running are Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Queen State Assembly Member Claire Valdez. I've had both Reynoso and Valdez here on the podcast recently so you can find those conversations if you missed either or both after you listen to this one. The 7th Congressional District is one of New York State's 26 seats in the U.S. house of Representatives and it includes parts of Western Queens and Western Brooklyn, Southern Queens and North Brooklyn. The neighborhoods include parts or all of Long Island City, Sunnyside, Maspeth, Ridgewood, Glendale and Woodhaven in Queens, and in Brooklyn, parts are all of Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Cypress Hills, East New York, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. Like all of New York's House districts, the 7th's overall population is more than 750,000 constituents and this district is roughly 37% white, 36% Latino, 14% Asian and 10% black. The district population is roughly 60% in Brooklyn and 40% in Queens. My guest Julie Wan represents the 26th City Council district, which overlaps significantly with the Queen's portion of this Congressional district and her council district includes parts or all of Long Island City, Sunnyside, Astoria and Woodside. She is the first woman and immigrant to represent her district. She came to the country at age 8 from South Korea and she was elected to the city council in 2021, taking office the next year and she was re elected two later. Juan has significant overlapping turf with Valdez in their Queen's districts at the city and state levels respectively. While Reynoso of course represents all of the Brooklyn side of the district as the Borough President, he also used to represent some of the Queen side in the City Council. Keep in mind there's no ranked choice voting in this primary as it is not a city level seat, so whoever gets the most votes in the primary in the field wins. Neither Council Member Juan nor Borough President Reynoso has to give up their city based seat to run for Congress, but Valdez does since state legislative elections happen at the same time as House elections. For context on the politics of this district, a few numbers from within this Congressional district borders from the 2025 mayoral race. In the June 2025 primary after the ranked choice tally was done, zoran Mamdani won 76% of the vote in this congressional district compared to 24% for Andrew Cuomo and the general election, which of course adds in Independents and Republicans and perhaps some Democrats who didn't vote in the primary. Mamdani still got 68% of the vote in this district to Cuomo's 26%. So again a very progressive district. Now Mamdani, for his part and the New York City Democratic Socialists of America DSA that helped launch him are backing Valdez, who is also a DSA member. The retiring Congresswoman Velasquez has endorsed Reynoso as her chosen successor. Those are among many other early endorsements that have been coming in largely for those two leading candidates. While Julie Wan, my guest today, launched her campaign a little late later than them and is now fighting for more and more support in the race with still plenty of time until primary day in June. So that's a snapshot of where things stand here on February 27th and in just a moment my conversation with Julie Wong, which we recorded on February 26. Very briefly. If you missed any recent episodes of the show, find them all in the Max Politics feed. Few quick highlights I mentioned the conversations with the other two leading New York seven Democratic candidates, Reynoso and Valdez. Then also speaking of much watched Congressional primaries, I recently had good in depth conversations with each of the two Democrats leading in the 10th congressional district primary. That's the district covering lower Manhattan and a big stretch of Brooklyn next to the 7th district that's current Congressional Representative Dan Goldman and his primary challenger Brad Lander, spoke with both of them at length. I also recently spoke with New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, just six weeks or so on the job for him, discussing the city's fiscal picture, Mayor Mamdani's first budget plan, which was released on February 17. The same day I spoke with the comptroller and we spoke about other issues related to the city's economic health, budget and more. Really good conversation there. And lastly, most recently here on the show, I talked with the leaders of the New York Working Families Party, the progressive small party that has a lot of influence in some Democratic primaries. State Director Jasmine Gripper as well as Anna Maria Archillo, who had been co director with Gripper for about three years but recently left WFP leadership to join the Mandani administration as Commissioner of International Affairs. So a really good conversation there with Jasmine Gripper and Anna Maria Archilla about the Working Families Party and its power and some of its 2026 endorsement decisions and much more. So those and many other good ones in your podcast feed for after you listen to this one. All right, I'm very pleased to welcome to Max Politics, Julie Wan, a New York City Council member from Queens and a candidate For New York's 7th congressional district in primary set for June June 23rd is primary day not far off now and there will of course be early voting and mail in voting even before that. So we're kind of, kind of in the stretch run here. Council member, how are you? Thanks for joining me.
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Hi Ben, thank you so much for having me on.
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So will you just take a couple minutes and introduce yourself a bit to listeners who may not know you? Who are you, where you come from, how did you get into politics?
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Sure. My name is Julie Wan and I'm currently a City Council member. I represent the 26th district. I'm in my third term where I represent Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside and Astoria which wholly sits within New York 7 the congressional district I come from a non traditional background. I come from about a decade of tech experience. I worked at IBM where I did a mix of federal consulting for the federal civilian agencies as well as private sector commercial consulting for various number of companies and startups. And I only pivoted to government by happenstance because as a consultant that used to be at 90% travel. It wasn't until the pandemic when my travel was frozen that I started to have more free time. And at the time when the pandemic hit and I got the first call and my partner said, hey, we're not going to be traveling anymore, but sit tight, work remotely and we'll figure this out. That I had a lot of free time. And when I was sitting at home watching the news and the press conference that De Blasio and Cuomo were having every day, I remember seeing the schools are going to be. Public schools will be shut down. But if you're a public school free lunch kid, come and pick it up. I grew up on public school free lunch. As an immigrant. When I came to this country and I remember any federal holiday like presidents say that just passed, I would sit at home with my brother eating one pack of ramen with extra water to make sure that we were full. But we did not have the ability to go outside because we didn't have childcare. I couldn't walk a mile and a half to pick up my food. So I started to do meal deliveries to local public housing because I lived a block away from Queensbridge Houses and I knew that other students like me would go hungry. And that's when I saw firsthand that my NYCHA neighbors couldn't afford Internet. So they were sitting outside using Link NYC Beacons to go to school. And that really irked me because if the government was telling you to get your education online, go to work online, get your dmv, get your government services online and get your telehealth online, yet we did not make sure that our lowest income neighbors had Internet access the way that we have our utilities for heat, hot water and electricity. That it was unacceptable. And it put me on a journey to fight for free Internet access. And that's when I jumped into the race for city council amongst 18 people. Because I don't come from politics, I didn't have any endorsements, I didn't really have union support or anything like that. And through that tough race, we still won with the message of free WI fi for all, especially for public housing. And within six months of being elected, I was able to get free Internet and cable TV for my NYCHA residents at Queensbridge Houses, Ravenswood Houses and Woodside Houses. Then the last three years we were able to expand that program called Big Apple Connect citywide. And now all NYCHA residents have free Internet and cable TV with 80% adoption rate. Fast forward. I have this rare opportunity of running for Congress because Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, the legend, has retired. But for me, I think about people like John Ortega, a 26 year old who committed suicide in my migrant shelter, leaving behind a widow and three kids, or Yuan Xin, a six year old who was taken from a local school in my district and was deported and detained twice. So I think about as an immigrant myself, of how I went through the naturalization journey and the current state of the country, of how we are treating immigrants who are the backbone of our economy. And that has propelled me to run for office, to really fight to abolish ICE and to end family separation.
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Sticking with that last part a little bit, what is your sort of stance if you were in Congress now, Democrats in the minority, very little leverage, except at least a little bit in the House, a little bit more in the Senate, given they usually try to pass things with the 60 votes and Republicans don't have 60 but limited leverage for Democrats right now. But there's been some of this sort of holdup on funding for the Department of Homeland Security around questions about reforming ice. The issue of abolition of ICE is not really on the table right now. Given Republicans stronghold on the federal government, what kind of reforms would you see as at least a step in the right direction from your view that Democrats should be fighting for right now in Washington?
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When I think about ICE and how it was formed after 9 11, I just don't see a real justification of the way that it has grown in terms of budget and size and the unruliness of how these thugs operate. What we've seen with Alex Preddy and Renee Goode is almost unimaginable in the United States of America that US Citizens would be shot in the face in broad daylight and murdered in front of other people for standing up for their constitutional rights to assemble and to protest and to speak up for and resist when they see something that is unjust and for the hope is that during the midterms that we will gain back the majority of the House. But if in this hypothetical sense that we don't have a majority still, even when I'm elected to Congress, I would say that first and foremost we have to end family separation. As a mother of two, it is unacceptable that I am seeing images of children who have died under custody of ICE and Homeland Security and National Guards. It is unacceptable that children are separated and they are sitting in their own feces, that they are in cages, that they are not given proper care. These are toddlers, these are children, these are minors. And for them it isn't just about it's not just about figuring out the legal pathways to citizenship, but it's just the amount of trauma that you're putting these children through. Especially for children who are underage to be completely separated from their parent, with no real language, access to. No access to decent food or sleep. I just don't believe that this is the country that I immigrated to or the country that we claim to be as the United States of America. And I think that really needs to end. And I'm not sure if people really understand for immigrants like myself, until you become a permanent resident or a green card holder, which may take over a decade, sometimes two decades, you can never see your family outside of this country. Like, you can't leave because you have no chance of coming back. So I think about recent cases where I've had phone calls from my constituents who say, hey, I currently have an extension on my visa. I have a permanent letter, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to go, but my grandmother passed away. I have to go to this funeral in Brazil. Will I be okay? Or even someone who's saying, you know, I haven't seen my mom in 16 years, and I'm finally going to Mexico to see her because she's at the last end of her ears and I don't know if I'll make it back to the border. Can you look out for me? These are the kind of conversations that I'm having on a daily basis that just breaks my heart.
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So, broadly speaking, I think there's almost universal agreement that the immigration system in this country has been broken for a long time. There have been some attempts at bipartisan compromise that have fallen apart. Do you have a couple planks? You know, again, given some of the long timelines that you just cited, and how we know that these. So many of these asylum cases can take, you know, years and years to be adjudicated. And then we get into all sorts of tricky territory about people then who outstay, you know, the legal parameters of their ability to visit. But in part, they have this indeterminate amount of time before they know if their cases will be resolved, and they're setting down routes and all. All of these issues that come with the. The way things have been going. Do you have a couple planks to how you'd seek the bigger reforms to the immigration system that are sort of separate from some of the current enforcement debates going on?
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So, I mean, there's just a lot to unpack. We could probably talk about it for over an hour right now. I know that there's a legislative proposal called the Dignity act and that reforms a visa and asylum process while legal status for qualified undocumented individuals are being processed. Because what I see the most, what I've had to do for the last two years, because as an immigrant, I raised my hand when some of my colleagues were fighting over where the migrant shelter should open. I opened the highest amount of migrant shelters in the city. I enrolled the highest amount of migrant students into my school district so that they have an education. But very quickly, what we saw, which is what my family went through as well, is that you get them enrolled into school schools, which is great in a sanctuary city and a right to shelter city, you get them a home. But now the question at hand is how do we get them to legally work? Because the federal government just simply does not allow it. It just doesn't make any economic sense for us or in any sense of humanity, of how we have these people in the country and they. And it takes multiple years for them to be processed, yet we still have them in the country and they're not able to work, so they can't sustain themselves. And then the conversation goes back to, well, now they're living off of public funds or they need public benefits. So what I've had to do is we worked with nonprofits to register my migrant communities and asylum communities for ITIN numbers, so individual tax ID numbers. And we were also able to, in support of the speaker, Adrian Adams, for the former speaker, open up the first domestic workers co op so that the women in my community had individual tax ID numbers. They were paying taxes. And then we also enrolled them into the, into becoming co owners of this domestic coworker co op for nannies and house cleaning jobs. And they were able to become co owners of their business, which gave them a pathway to pay taxes, have an income, and also apply for entrepreneurship visas so that they can become. They can have a clear pathway to permanent residence. So thinking about how we are speeding up, because I had to do that as a workaround to really understand, is there a way that we can have the border enforcement and security and even the application process? We know that CBP1 did not work because it was just a free for all. You just filled out an app and then you just enter the country whether you were, you were accepted or not. We can't have this pendulum swing of everyone and anyone coming through the border to nobody coming through the border. Here's a list of bans that we're going to imply. So I think it's something that is in the middle, where it is comprehensive reform, where we have a clear legal pathway to citizenship that does not put People in limbo because it's not helpful to anybody. And it also isn't fair to our neighboring countries where people are just stuck in Mexico, even though they're from Venezuela or from another country, because they're just told that they have to wait there until their asylum seeker process is actually processed.
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Some of it that, I mean, I understand some of the reasons that there's just been a stalemate over reform and that sometimes these long wait processes to some are preferable than a faster system which allows more people to have permanent status. But still, the lack of resources being put towards speeding up adjudication of asylum claims and things like that just always boggles my mind about why the federal government hasn't done a better job of speeding up all these processes. So at least there's more clarity around people's status.
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I mean, it's also a lot of antiquated systems. The amount of paperwork that we've had to fill out and that people still need to fill out and that we continue to see a deduction or a divestment of these offices that have to process these claims. When you have less staff and you're. And you have to process hundreds and thousands of pages of paperwork, it's going to continue to slow it down. And that's what we saw during COVID as well.
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You mentioned your city council district seeing the opening and in your view, welcoming the opening of many migrant shelters during this massive influx of individuals. We had to the city often referred to as the migrant crisis. Since you had that vantage point and did some of what you were just discussing in your district, do you have a view that differs from some of the popular narrative or the conventional wisdom about how that crisis went for the city and how Mayor Adams and his team handled it? Do you think they did better than maybe a lot of people sort of think or say? I mean, I know there was often a bit of a divergence between a lot of the on the ground work that the city was doing with partners versus some of the mayor's language publicly, where he was, you know, often very critical of the Biden administration. You know, some of that had to do with the lack of funding, lack of work permits, et cetera. But just big picture, how do you think back to the bulk of that crisis and how it went and whether there's sort of a discussion pieces of the discussion that people have gotten wrong.
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A quarter million on record that we have, which I believe is an undercount, we had a quarter million people enter the city of New York as migrants or immigrants the last two years. That's a lot of people. That's almost the same amount of people that we lost during the pandemic to people fleeing to other parts of the country. I don't think that we did the best we could. I simply do not think so. Because my biggest gripe with the way that it was handled was the 30, 60 day law where every 30 days my single men were spat out. Every 60 days my families were spat out. And it's completely destabilizing for their communities. It's destabilizing for these students who are in schools who now are shuffled back where they are told, go back to the welcome center and then you have to fill out this paperwork again and then we'll reapply you and you may or may not get placement, depending on availability. And you could end up in Jamaica or you can end up in the Bronx and you'll have to come back to school in Sunnyside. Those children, majority at large, did not show up in Sunnyside for school again. And when, you know, because I believe that that was a workaround for them to get around the sanctuary laws because you by law have to house these people. And their excuse was, well, you know, we have to think about the costs of housing everybody. So therefore we need to destabilize them, to incentivize them to move on with their lives. But again, it goes back to if they're not legally able to work and they don't have someone who's helping them through the workarounds of registering for your ITIN number and getting a W9, getting a CO op, becoming an employee and working on not under the table, but buy the books, paying taxes. Most people who don't speak this language and don't have proper identification will never find this process. So I just don't think that if you look at it in hindsight or comprehensively or you look at it long term, it is more beneficial for us to allow them to have stability for at least six to eight months, if not a year, so that they can get their finances in order so that they can build community. And either they double up and live with a friend or a family, or they become independent financially and they're able to integrate into community, which is what we've seen in our district, is that the 3060 day rule was one of the most harmful policies that the mayor, the former mayor has chosen to do.
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Obviously, a lot more we could talk about there. But to move on to a couple other things. Speaking of your city council district One other connected, but also very big issue you've dealt with is development, housing, supply, rezoning negotiations. You came right into the council and very quickly were thrust into this major negotiation over a rezoning in Astoria. That was the Innovation Queens project, which seemingly now has sort of, I don't know, fallen apart or isn't moving forward after a huge amount of negotiations that you went through and the developers seemingly are not going through with the project towards the end of the recent term, you negotiated an enormous Long island city rezoning, huge area rezoning with lots of community benefits and so forth. So two major, major land use negotiations of your time in the council so far. Big picture here. Without going through all the details of either of those big picture, how are you thinking about land use, housing? There's now changes to the city charter that have altered some of the dynamics of power that limit some of the ways that city council members can potentially influence proposals. How are you thinking about those broader dynamics of your City council district has been, even without those two negotiations, one of the places that has seen a lot of growth, a lot of interest over, over the recent years, some city council districts building almost no new housing. How are you thinking about these dynamics and where we are in the city right now and how, you know, council members, the mayoral administration and private developers are all negotiating over, over a lot of this?
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I just want to make a correction that Innovation Queens did not fall apart. It's still moving forward. We're still having meetings now. So Bedrock llc, in addition to them and five other additional owners are still moving forward with that development plan. And they're still having conversations with the state and the city on the subsidies that are required to build 45% affordable, as well as the other CBAs that were agreed to.
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So you think that's mostly. Give me, give me your assessment then, as we speak here, where that's going to. Where that's going to. Land. It's still moving.
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Okay, so the reason why it fell apart is because Silverstein sold his land along with other small developers, because when he retired, his daughter decided that they were only going to focus on Manhattan and she was no longer going to do outer boroughs. And also the smaller landowners didn't want to wait five or ten years to cash out. They were incentivized to cash out and move on with their lives because they only owned one or few properties and they're retiring. So those are things that nobody can control. And it wasn't a neighborhood rezoning like one lic. That was A private rezoning, like one through by themselves that no one can control. But the rezoning has already taken place and developers have now repurchased the land. This is not nothing new in the city of New York where they constantly purchase and flip land all the time and they switch hands amongst owners. But that that project seems to be moving forward. Okay. Secondly, when it comes to housing overall, we're in a housing crisis. And because I have at any given time 37 shelters, if not 38, and that means at any given time of 10 to 15,000 people who are unhoused or homeless, that means that within my last four years, it was in my duty and my responsibility as an elected official to make sure that I'm at least meeting that threshold or a benchmark of one to one, that I am building housing for at least 15,000 people to be housed, which is what I've surpassed with within my last four years. We've now had a rezoning for 18,000 units of housing. I think it's more than that and that's actually more than what the borough of Queens has done in the last decade. So for us, our benchmark has always been to make sure that we are accounting for those who are unhoused. And obviously if I could build only affordable housing, I would, but financially it's not possible. And in addition to that, we opened up the first set of CUNY homeless housing in Long Island City and we're also opening up a second set of of CUNY homeless housing through one lic. And we're going to continue to focus on family sized units as well as making it affordable as possible for lower income levels or lower bands of area median income to ensure that family sized units are prioritized, not one bedroom and studios. And also making sure that we're looking at people who are actually rent burdened because my district is almost 80% renter, that they are being the primary focus of who gets to live there. But the development in law and the city has happened way before my time during Michael Bloomberg. And for better or for worse, you know, I don't believe in closing the door behind me. I believe that we will always welcome new neighbors, whether you're a migrant, you're a transplant, as they say, or someone who's new to the neighborhood or from any of the boroughs anywhere in the country. Long Island City is one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in the country and we welcome everyone here. And my ask to the city has always been if we develop more housing, you have to make sure that you're accounting for the social infrastructure. So that means building enough school seats, making sure that we are upgrading our sewage and plumbing infrastructure, making sure that we have proper green space per the amount of population that we're building for. Because Gantry park is beautiful and wonderful and nice, but we need more green space. So there.
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And obviously a lot of that. Part of the. Part of the Long Island City plan.
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Exactly.
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Which is.
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I'm a big proponent of comprehensive planning and neighborhood zonings, not piecemeal projects. Because we know that change is extremely painful and it could cause a lot of tension in the neighborhoods that we're really being thoughtful and intentional on what the community has given us feedback on and how we achieve that.
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What can you do at the federal level to help the city's housing crisis? Are there levers you want to pull in Washington if you wind up in Congress that can help make the city grow its housing supply, become more affordable, develop more affordable housing? How are you thinking about a federal role on these issues? After being in the weeds of negotiating city land use deals? How would that change at the federal level? What would you be looking to do there to address housing supply and affordability in the.
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Yeah, I think it's a multi level policy and obviously it's not in one word. It's not just about saying buzzwords and there's no easy, you know, there's no easy one solve pill for this. The way that I think about it, the same way that I've been talking about it in my district, is that we look at housing as circular as possible from making sure that people from homelessness of housing shelters, warehousing folks that we currently have, looking at long term shelter solutions so that they have kitchenettes at least to make sure that they have their own individual bathrooms to make sure that they have access to WI fi. Because what we see in our homeless shelters is that they don't have Internet, they have public bathrooms that have to be shared. There's not even a kitchen. So thinking from homelessness to rental to home ownership, that everything is inexplicably linked and we can't fix one without not the others. So we have to look at it comprehensively across and looking at the housing strategy of every need for the population experiencing homelessness to middle income households, to considering both renters and homeowners. And I think this is a hot topic right now because we're having a huge conversation statewide and citywide about 9.5% tax increases for property owners. So I just had a meeting today with CO OP and condo owners who are losing their mind. And then you see from our black homeowners in southeast Queens who say this house was inherited by my grandmother to me, but my income level is at $65,000 a year. My house might be worth $2 million. I'm not going to be able to pay a 10% increase in my taxes. So I think it's important to look at it in how everything is linked together that there is no, it's a domino, there is no just taxing property owners and getting away with it. Where we as renters will also see that increase in our rent. Small businesses who lease from those landlords will also see an increase in, in their leases as well. And we obviously have to expand the housing supply. We have to empower renters and home first time home buyers continuing with those subsidy programs and making sure that we have low APRs for those who want to buy and assist on house people leverage funding to such as the vouchers, programs like city FEBs and making sure that we have it. And I think for me, from my perspective of the last four years is that we have, we are currently heavily relying on the private sector to fix this housing crisis for us. And I don't think it's enough because we're never going to build enough affordable housing and they're never going to be incentivized to build as many affordable housing as we really need because they at the end of the day have to make profit. I think it's a mix of both public sector housing like publicly built housing like Section 8 and Section 9, bringing those back and preserving the ones that exist as well as building new housing with mih. But it just is not enough to only build.
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B
I was going to say if you ask the private sector developers, they would say everything's handcuffing us too much. You know, if you have mandatory inclusionary housing and you just let us build, you'll get enough, you know, you'll get enough of both. But, but I hear, I hear your point on, on something of an all of the above approach. Let me come back to your work in tech. About a decade you said at IBM doing some government contracting. Say a little bit more about that and how you think about civic tech, government use of technology. Obviously at all levels of government, the public sector is often very far behind the private sector in terms of updated technology, use of tech, et cetera. How do you think about that? And if you were in Congress, are there elements of your agenda that you'd look to bring to Sort of revolutionize or at least provide an evolution of how government uses technology.
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Yeah. So overall, if you look at my website for my campaign for Congress, we're running on what we call a lifetime of care. And that's from the moment you're born until the day you retire or you die, that at every single stage of your life, that there is a safety net in the case that you have a car crash, or in case you have a workplace injury, or in case you find out you have a chronic disease or, or you're a newborn baby that can't work, or you're a postpartum mother, at every stage that you feel that the government cares about you. And I believe that tech is a part of it. We're giving you a sneak peek because we haven't exposed this yet. It's not public, but we're looking at, because of my tech background, we're looking at how technology shapes the way we work, the way that we learn, we see doctors and how we connect with the ones we love, especially the way that we felt it so viscerally during the pandemic. And for me, currently, I'm the workforce development chair, the first one ever in New York City Council history. And that was formulated because we're seeing extreme job stagnation, because we're also on the cusp of what I think is basically the same thing as a dot com bubble, but an AI bubble, where we're seeing a huge shift in every industry in the ways that AI disrupting our workplace. But instead of living in fear of becoming obsolete, I'm focused on making sure that we are upskilling and investing in every single employee so that they're well equipped to understand how AI can work for them in their workplace and how we're going to upskill people to have that in their, in their wheelhouse so that they can continue to operate. So for, for me, some of the basics that's kind of building off of what I've already done, which is closing the digital dividend. You can't learn an LLM or SLM or any form of automation without basic Internet access. You just can't. So when I first started in council, the federal government had something called the Affordable Connectivity Program nationwide. And I was the first person to get all 51 council members, even the Republicans, to sign on to this unanimous letter calling on Chuck Schumer, the senator, to continue to fund this program. Unfortunately, it has been discontinued, but I believe that some sort of subsidy where Instead of paying $125, you'll be able to get Internet for half that price, if not a quarter of that price, no matter where you live in the country. So I believe that we have to continue to guarantee Internet access nationwide, treating it like a utility, like heat, hot water and electricity. Because without it there isn't a chance that anyone in this modern day is going to be able to compete in, in the workplace without it. Interesting. I think for right now, especially with the Epstein files of what's circulating and just the disturbance of pedophilia and as a mom of two, it just makes me want to puke. So I also think about GROK and how we're seeing very broadly this dissemination of sexualized images of children and women without consent. So for me, I want to make sure that we're working on legislation protect women and children's dignity online. The nudify tools really serve no other no real purpose for productivity or for your workplace or any, any real reason to exist. I think it's kind of disgusting.
- [36:06]
B
Yeah. What so, so what does that mean? Should there be federal legislation around AI that you're thinking about? Is there anything out there ready that you like? I know in a somewhat neighboring congressional district you've got Assemblymember Alex Boris who's sort of been leading on some of these issues at the state level. He's now running for Congress in the, in the 12th district. That open race there getting into a lot of, of discussion around being able to harness AI but also regulated. How do you think about what, what that legislation should look like?
- [36:43]
A
Yeah, we already saw the Take It down act pass into law in 2025 and that criminalizes publishing of non consensual. Consensual explicit images and requires platforms to remove them. But I don't believe it goes far enough. I also, as someone who has lived through sexual assault, I think for minors, especially if you are a survivor of non consensual sexual deep fakes, you do, you should have the right to sue. And I think we have to also think about how their the statute of limitations for that. So currently for sexual assault we saw the Survivors act in New York State. So on a, on a national level, what does that mean for children who may have been used as a deep fake and disgusting pedophilic images when they become an adult because many children and many minors or just even adults, that it takes a long time for you to process what has happened to you from that trauma and to get to a place where you say okay, I'm willing to unearth this again and be Public be in court papers, show up at court, testify, spend time and energy and money going against my, against the person who offended me by doing this act. So allowing them to have a statute of limitations that is ample enough for them to go through this grieving process or healing process, not just within an immediate time of when this is takes place. Because sometimes children also don't come forward with what they've experienced. And then also I do believe that there should be some sort of liability for the facilitators themselves. Because currently what we're seeing is that if the image right now, what our national conversation has been is that if inappropriate image of you has appeared on, for example, on X or on Facebook or on Instagram or TikTok, the medium in which it appears is saying, oh, well, we didn't create this image. It just has been dispersed on my image on my platform, so therefore I am not liable at all. But if your platform is what is currently disseminating this image, that is illegal. For example, Telegram has been having a huge, huge backlash because it's being used for pedophiles to disseminate all these nude images of children. So should Telegram have any sort of liability for continuing to allow this to happen? I think so. I don't think that there should be anything like back pages, the way that back pages was eventually held accountable for allowing all the, all the trafficking of children to continue on without zero responsibility for what it's being used for. Because it's not like, because I don't think that these platforms can just turn a blind eye. Being like it may be happening, it may not be happening. I have nothing to do with it. People will use my platform for whatever they wish.
- [39:26]
B
Right. This goes back to what's section 230 or something like that that shields platforms from, from responsibility on what's published on those platforms. If it's created by others. Yeah, yeah.
- [39:40]
A
Something of the level of pedophilia is just, you know, I just think that we need to have basic human decency.
- [39:47]
B
Yeah. All right, let me ask you a couple of, about a couple other things. Let's, let's talk about this race in particular here.
- [39:54]
A
So
- [39:56]
B
the two other elected officials in the race at least, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Assemblymember Claire Valdez. What would you say sort of differentiates you from them? How do you sort of, of compare yourselves? You know, a lot of discussion in this race right now that all three of you, if you were elected, would probably 99%, you know, vote the same way on things that came before the House, you know, would probably support a lot of the same things, but you each have your own individual background, you each have your own, you know, histories in elected office of various lengths, as well as, you know, different resumes in different ways. But how would you capture the most important ways that you differentiate yourself from your opponents in this race?
- [40:39]
A
Currently, I'm the only mom out of those three candidates, as well as the only immigrant out of those three candidates. And I believe that my tech experience and my private sector experience is also extremely important in the ways that I see the world, the way that I've lived it out, and the ways that I've legislated or fought for funding and initiatives in the city council as a legislator. So I believe that, yes, 100%, I think all three of us are progressives who will vote the same way when elected. But the ways your lived experience shapes on what you focus on. So naturally, the first $5 million of funding that I fought for within months of being elected was creating a language access co op and an interpreter bank because I spent every Saturday with my mother translating all of these documents for her so that we could qualify for benefits, so that we could survive in this country. And I've had to translate for my uncle when he was diagnosed with stage five lung cancer because the doctor did not have a translator and I had to be a teenager telling my uncle that he is going to die in a number of months. So I believe that these are the ways that this is something that no one can take away from you. These are the things that no one can. No one can convince you with no amount of donations to care less about something, to not fight for something when you've lived it. You know that your priorities are going to be making sure that every single person that enters this country, that they come with bright eyes of opportunity, that they are allotted that opportunity the same way that my family and I were.
- [42:15]
B
Now. Congresswoman Velasquez has been in Congress for several decades. Her district has shifted in redistricting a bit, so it's become quite a bit less Latino over those redistricting, but still a heavily Latino district. And she has been perhaps the voice in Congress for Puerto Rico. How do you sort of see if you were elected building on that legacy? Do you think it's incumbent upon the representative of this district to be sort of a voice for Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans, whether they're in Puerto Rico or here in New York? How do you think about that? How do you think about the future of Puerto Rico, if you do think it's important for this representative to take on those issues, and if you don't, why not? And who would that be? Who would that be left to?
- [43:03]
A
I have such deep admiration and respect for Congresswoman Lydia Velazquez and what she has done for women, women of color and also for Puerto Ricans. Right now, I would say that this district as div. Is now majority white, but it is still 60% foreign born.
- [43:27]
B
So I believe plurality white, right?
- [43:29]
A
Yeah. So I would say, yes, plurality white. And I would say, I would say that 60% of us are foreign born. And I believe that unites us together more than just the color of our skin or our demographic identifier on a government form. But when in a time like now where immigration crackdowns are happening, where left and right, every single day, I'm getting messages of images of ICE officers detaining our neighbor, of children getting deported. I believe that we all share the same sentiment of a great deep sense of responsibility and desire for immigration reform and a naturalization process, of how difficult it may be where I still sit with my neighbors, from my neighbors who are Colombian American who come to me and they say, I've been in this country for 23 years and I still have not gotten my citizenship. Can you help me? I only have my green card. So it is a long and arduous process that has to be fixed. And for your answer for Puerto Rico, as you know, Ben, because you tweet about it all the time, we go every year for somos. And I believe that New York City history is intrinsically intertwined with Puerto Rican history and what we have done to that country as the United States of America. And we've seen great divestment. We just saw Bad Bunny's performance of his, of political commentary on what's happening with their power lines, with their energy of just exploitation of that country overall. We also know, like I know as a woman for all birth control, how it was created and tested there. It's just a lot that is unjust. And I will continue to vote in support of what she has fought for and to overhaul tax policies like Puerto Rico's Act 22 and making sure that we're holding accountability for what's happening to that, to that piece of land that is currently under our control. And I know that she was the one who penned Self Determination act to create a fair and independent democratic process for Puerto Ricans to govern for themselves. You know, no taxation without representation. But, you know, I'm not going to pretend Like I'm going to be the next Puerto Rican champion. It's just not realistic. And I also think it's kind of inappropriate. We do, however, have amazing Puerto Rican leaders like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who is in my neighboring, who is in my neighboring district as a Congress member. And I believe there, there are others across the country. And I know that right now it probably does weigh heavy on her that there isn't a Puerto Rican candidate that's running that she could support. But I still believe that we could continue to have shared sentiment and priorities for Puerto Rico, continue her legacy in the work that she has done for Puerto Rico and just as representation for Los Suedes and honoring the history of that area of Williamsburg and just continuing to be supportive in solidarity. Because the same way that I would never want someone to erase history for Asian Americans in this country, no one is running to erase the history of Puerto Ricans in this country either. And I believe that all candidates have that sentiment, even though none of us are Puerto Rican.
- [46:39]
B
Say a little bit. I know you talked about this when we first started chatting here, but say a little bit. You are in the City Council, you've just won another term. Why want to jump to Congress? What is it about being in the House that would be more appealing to making change than what you do at the city level in the, in the City Council? What is it about this opportunity that makes you want to jump from city government to federal government?
- [47:11]
A
It's really about jurisdiction, because whether if it's for FCC regulations for Internet and protecting our transparency, net neutrality principles, our consumer protections for Internet, as well as AI policies that we're going to have for our technology revolution that we're in to immigration reform, that only happens on the federal level. And I could pass all the resolutions I want in the City Council saying I really want the whole country to have Internet access. And I really hope and dream for the federal government to give us more subsidies so that we can afford universal childcare or universal health care, that we can have Internet, we can have Internet for all. But those things can't happen from city council. That happens in a jurisdiction level of the federal government. And it's a rare opportunity. It's not often that you see an open seat for Congress. I genuinely did not even imagine that it would happen in my tenure. And when the opportunity arises and you have the support that you need to run for it, I believe that it's a free democracy. And if you believe that you have the right to participate in this Democratic process. Everyone should. No one should be denied that right. Which kind of what we saw with this part.
- [48:24]
B
What do you mean?
- [48:25]
A
You know, we're seeing it in the city where some people want to run, and they say that they want to run, they file with fcc, and then someone else tells them they shouldn't run, and then you see that they drop out.
- [48:36]
B
Is that in reference to, like, the mayor convincing people not to run in certain races or what? What. Is there a particular example you're thinking of?
- [48:46]
A
I think that could be an example, and there are many others where I believe that there are people nudge people
- [48:52]
B
out of races because they say this is. This is who everybody needs to support, that type of thing.
- [48:56]
A
Yes.
- [48:59]
B
Okay. Well, in that instance, say a little bit about path to victory here. You've got a couple of prominent candidates here who have some pretty significant endorsements behind them. Do you think those endorsements make it a pretty uphill battle for you? How do you sort of see the actual path to victory, the lay of the land here? What could make the difference for you to. To win against the borough president, who's got the congresswoman's endorsement, the assembly member, who's got the mayor's endorsement? How do you sort of see the actual political playing field here that you've entered into the Congress?
- [49:35]
A
The congressional district is extremely large, and for me, I'm. For better or for worse, my community calls me, or folks in politics call me the feral progressive, because I'm kind of just like a raccoon that came out of the trash can. And I'm like, hello, I'm here because I care about WI Fi. Like, who the heck is that and where is she coming from? And I always talk about how when I first ran, I ran in a clown car race of, like, 21 people, and everyone had a doppelganger. There were two Asians, two white women, two black women. Like everyone and their mom was running for office. And in a crowded race, what differentiated me was my focus and discipline on my messaging of what I was trying to achieve and having a clear communication with the voters through digital as well as in person, through door knocking and in person events and organizing to say, this is why I'm running. Here's why you should care, and if you're with me, let's go together. And continuing to build support that way. And we were able to win without large union endorsements or organizational endorsements. But I did have a lot of Asian Americans who supported me and the LGBTQ community that supported me, and that's what I'm seeing again this time where we currently have the endorsement of four Congress members that we have not rolled out yet. And we are continuing to have conversations with other elected officials to gain their support. And one state senator and a state assembly member and a city council member. We are going to make those announcements in due time. But for us, we've always just focused so on connecting with our voters. And I've represented this district amongst my overlapping in western Queens the longest amongst my state assembly member, my state senator and myself. And I've also had a long term relationship with the community as part of the community board prior to getting elected, as the board of two local nonprofits prior to getting elected. So these relationships go deep. And it's as of the last election, it was about 30,000 people that voted for me. And I believe that we can continue to have an operation and conversation with our voters throughout New York seven of understanding what their needs are and how we're going to connect, whether they're an immigrant or whether they're a mom or whether they are currently in the private sector working but wanting to see more from our government and seeing effectuated change in a pragmatic, realistic way. And that's what I will continue to offer for them.
- [51:55]
B
The four members of Congress you alluded to that are endorsing your campaign, are any of them from New York? Are those national endorsements? What's the.
- [52:05]
A
It's both.
- [52:06]
B
Both. Okay, very interesting. We'll be looking for that announcement. Do you want to give us, give us one or two of the four names.
- [52:14]
A
I will not announce it now. Okay.
- [52:17]
B
I know those things are very strategically announced and so forth. All right, in our last few minutes here, a little bit more on sort of Congress and leadership. So New York has, and Brooklyn in particular is home to the Senate Minority Leader and the House Minority leader right now, Senator Schumer and Representative Jeffries. What do you think of how Democratic leadership in Congress has been doing in the minority? Obviously, once you lose or don't have the majorities, it's a tough road there. But how have they been doing in the minority? And are you supportive of Hakeem Jeffries to be the next speaker of that House if Democrats take the majority
- [53:05]
A
at this point? I believe that the last two years in particular was. Were extremely painful where I've had difficult conversations even one on one and publicly with Senator Schumer, with my disagreement on the ways that we have been operating as Democrats and allowing certain bills to move forward, especially funding and funding bills that I do not fully align with which I have been public about for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. I believe that all of the Democrats are aligned where at this point we are saying, you know, it took some pressure, but I believe that now we are being even more resistant to Trump's agenda as a Democratic Party, even in the minority. And I appreciate that. Even when it's painful, where it means that we do face government shutdowns, that we are fighting back and saying enough is enough, we're not going to fund ICE anymore and we need to have more guardrails for the ways that they're operating if elected, because it's clear that we are continuing to move in tandem with everybody across the country as Democrats. I will support Hakeem Jeffries as the next, hopefully, majority leader.
- [54:18]
B
Who do you see as the national Democratic leadership right now? Is there 1, 2, 3, 4 Democrats who you consider sort of the strongest national voices for Democrats right now, or as some people say, do you see it as sort of a leaderless party right now?
- [54:34]
A
Well, I know that there's a lot of buzz on the left, especially for the prospect of Congresswoman Aoc running for president or even for Senate. And she has just been an amazing communicator, I think for a lot of young women and women of color with working class backgrounds like me who don't come come from politics. She has just been, she's just been a fearless leader, advocate and voice that gives a lot of folks courage. And she's, from my opinion, she's always been very kind, especially one on one, she comes off as a very strong Persona on the Internet and on tv. But I would say in person she's just so warm and kind and soft. So I really admire her three dimensional or like five dimensional of her as a leader. And I think that there's a really strong chance. I also have really admired Senator Warren as well. For her, I know that she's a huge wonk when it comes to policy. But my lifetime of care, for example, that policy is building off of the care economy, which she was one of the first champions of, to really understand that women are the backbone of our economy. Because the economy would not exist if the women were not willing to be caregivers, naturally, for those who are sick, for those, for the children who are the future of our country. So understanding that a lot of these jobs are women who are doing it unpaid and recognizing that they also deserve benefits for what they are doing and how we can better advocate for them and even 247 home care workers making sure that we have rights to Medicare and Medicaid health insurance for all. So as much as she's not as I feel like she's not as dynamic or sexy in a TV screen the way that Congressman Aoc is, I still really appreciate her thoughtfulness and intentions of the policies that she has been more quietly pushing over the years. And I hope that continuation and legacy becomes fruition and I see it in real life.
- [56:38]
B
All right. Very interesting. Any final thoughts? Do you want to is there anything you haven't said about your campaign platform that you want to lay out in our last couple minutes here? I guess one question is, you know, you have a pretty extensive lifetime of care platform that you want to institute. Have you looked at how to fund it? Have you thought about where the funding for it would come at a federal level to ensure all of these guarantees? Is that moving money, you know, as some progressives like to do out of the Department of Defense, is that increasing taxes? Have you thought about sort of the overall cost of this type of package and where the money would come from?
- [57:16]
A
It's a mix of everything. So, for example, right now we don't have paid maternity leave in this country in 2026. That's pretty horrid. And what I've seen in certain states that we're doing, none of these things are new. So basic things like prenatal and postpartum care, universal childcare and aftercare, universal health care, home care, retiring with dignity, having basic Social Security for folks on burial assistance, these ideas are not new. And some of it exists in other countries, and some of them exist in our very own states right here in this country, for example, for paid leave, for maternity leave and sick leave, what we've seen is that the federal government or the state government, what we've seen is that they can incentivize these employers of a certain size, 50 or 100 employers, employees minimum, so that they can carry that weight, that they get a tax abatement to say, okay, you're going to allow this person to have maternity leave, but for the months that you paid her or him for parental leave, that you could write it off in your taxes so that there's an incentive to allow them to have paid leave and sick leave and the company isn't at a loss for it. So I think there's many creative ways to get it done. And making sure that there we continue to reduce fraud, we're seeing, especially when it comes to senior care for the senior daycare centers and even for childcare centers there has been a lot of discussion on how there isn't clear regulation or some sort of mechanism to make sure that the money that we're spending, which is millions of dollars already, is actually going to the intent that we that we want it to be like 24, 7 home care. Are we making sure that these home care workers are the ones getting paid, not the insurance companies making a profit? Because that's what we see as well. So it's there's going to be a lot of layers for each age group that we're targeting and the each program that we're trying to get to. And it's going to be complex. But I don't think it's impossible because we're seeing it done in other states.
- [59:16]
B
All right, let's leave it there. City Council member Julie Wan, thank you very much for the time. Democrat running in the 7th congressional district primary, parts of Brooklyn and Queens primary coming up in June. So not that far off. Thanks for all the time and thoughts and stay in touch on the campaign trail.
- [59:32]
A
Thank you so much, Ben.