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- [00:00]
Ben
Well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it an early present for next year.
- [00:15]
Shoikat Chakrabadi
What do you have to lose?
- [00:16]
Ben
Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch limited time
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Commercial Announcer
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- [00:58]
Ben
Get started today@weightwatchers.com say goodbye to your job. MAGA Mike Johnson, the worst speaker of the House in American history, frankly a Speaker of the House in name only, a Trump sycophant and MAGA Mike Johnson. MAGA leadership in both the House and in the Senate are panicking as they see the prospects of them losing their jobs increasing by the day as midterms approach. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are unable to cover up up the Epstein files. I mean they may be hiding 50 terabytes or so of documents, but the American people know that what's already been produced is utterly grotesque and horrific. And MAGA Mike and Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans can try to pretend that Donald Trump is vindicated, but quite the contrary. What is said about him in those files is utterly disgusting and grotesque and horrible. And it shows a pedo protection racket in my opinion. Opinion for this Epstein class right there. Then of course you have Donald Trump's tariffs against the world being struck down by the United States Supreme Court on Friday. And then what does Donald Trump immediately do? He unlawfully invokes another so called tariff power from the Trade act of 1974, Section 1 22. Donald Trump imposed 10% tariffs on the entire world and then he also revoked the exemption on de minimis tariffs. Everybody who purchased this things now $800 or less. Vindictive, horrible, despicable. That sums up Trump and MAGA right now. Now MAGA Mike Johnson posted the following message yesterday. He goes, no one can deny that President's use of tariffs has brought in billions of dollars and created immense leverage for America's trade strategy and for securing strong reciprocal America first trade agree that had been taking advantage of American workers for decades. Congress and the administration will determine the best path forward in the coming weeks. You might want to read the Constitution there, MAGA Mike. There's a little something called Article 1, Section 8, which talks about the power of taxation belongs to Congress. You're supposed to zealously guard that as a co equal branch of government, Maga Mike. Not behave like the Duma in Russia for Vladimir Putin. But Maga Mike, this is why you are going to lose your job. This is why the MAGA Republicans are going to lose their jobs in the midterms. And the voters are absolutely, I mean, just take a listen to this Republican caller on C Span yesterday who talks about Donald Trump's massive loss before the United States Supreme Court. Paul in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Republican Paul, your reaction to the Supreme
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Commercial Announcer
Court's decision on the President's tariff policies?
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Ben
Well, I'm delighted. Tell us why. I think it's about time that President Trump was told that he just can't arbitrarily say that there's an emergency and I have to be the one to cure it. And I think that I'm happy to see that. It was a 6 to 3 decision and it shows me that there is hope for the Supreme Court in the future. And we're hearing from small business owners like this across the country. Play this clip. The President just ruled that. I mean I'm. Excuse me. The Supreme Court just ruled that the President can no longer impose tariffs moving forward.
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Commercial Announcer
How do you feel about this? Well, you know, I was bracing for the worst and to get that the ruling today was such a relief. I nearly in tears and I'm shocked at how relieved I am. This is big. It's very big.
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Ben
That's fantastic. And as Harry Entin explains, Donald Trump is underwater on every single issue. His worst issue is the Epstein files. But on everything, whether it's inflation, foreign policy, the economy, tariffs. Negative 60 Negative 20 Negative 20 Negative 25 Negative 39. Here, play this clip of Arianton. Here, play this clip.
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Shoikat Chakrabadi
Abe, anything but Epstein.
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Data Analyst
Take a look at Google searches for Epstein. In fact, in the month of February, it is higher than it's ever been. Up like a rocket, up 900% versus a month ago. And the top name associated with Googling for Epstein, well, it is Donald Trump. What is the worst issue for Donald Trump of any of the major issues. Look, he's underwater on immigration, foreign policy, the economy and tariffs. The Epstein case though, is on another planet. Look at this. Negative 39 points. The Epstein case is not the story. The Trump administration, and Trump in particular, and Republicans at large 1 in the news because it is a big political loser.
- [06:05]
Ben
I mean, here's the latest. A third American death linked to ICE crackdown that was uncovered by Newsweek on the morning of March 15th, 2025. Um, you had another American citizen who was murdered by Donald Trump's gestapo. They covered it up. And now we know yet again that the Trump regime, this is what they do, they cover up more killings, more murders of Americans and migrants. Just so, again, utterly despicable. San Antonio man was killed last. They just try to cover it up with all that going on as well. I just think that as I look to the midterms and people talk about blue wave, blue tsunami, is it going to happen? But I think that there is something bigger that potentially can happen, a bigger opportunity for the Democratic Party to be actually fighting for people, to be fighting for workers, to be fighting for equal rights and dignity and fair wages and housing and really stand for something. Not just stand against Donald Trump and his despicable regime, which we need to do very forcefully, but to stand for something and to really give a vision. And I actually think that vision is aligned with where the people are right now. And so I want to bring on a congressional candidate who's running in California's 11th congressional district. That's going to be Pelosi's old district, Shoikat Chakrabadi. And he to me, is one of these candidates who doesn't just represent potential way the Democrats take control of the House. Cuz what does control mean if you don't do things with your control like maga? Mike Johnson is the speaker of the House. He doesn't do anything, he doesn't have control other than destroy things and answer to Donald Trump. So Shoikat, it's great to have you here. I wanna go over your background in a bit, but I wanna start by saying I think there's a bigger opportunity and lots of people see hope in you and a number of other candidates across this country is representing that.
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Shoikat Chakrabadi
Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think what people are looking for right now is yes, in the short term we do need people who are going to stand up and fight this authoritarian regime that is taking control of our country. And they want Democrats with real fight. But beyond that, it's about what do we do after that? We can't go back to a pre Trump status quo because that's what got us Trump. The economy as it was before wasn't working. Working people were working longer and longer hours to afford less and less. And so people want some sort of bold, sweeping change. And I believe right now we're in our New Deal moment. We're at the point where we have to envision a new society, one that puts working people first. And it's all really coming to a head. I mean, with a combination of like the Epstein files coming out, showing how there is this cabal of wealthy elite pedophiles running the world, which is absurd, but it's true. It seems like. But at the same time you have AI popping up and these tech oligarchs and crypto billionaires gobbling up more and more of the wealth in our society and trying to create a permanent underclass. People do not want this Mad Max dystopian future. And I think we as Democrats have to offer the alternative for how do we actually create something way better than what we had before out of the carnage that we see right now.
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Ben
You saw this, right? You were a. For everyone doesn't know. You were AOC's campaign manager. You were her chief of staff through about 2019, then you ran New Consensus. So you've been embedded in these types of campaigns, speaking to people, seeing on the front lines what it's like. And it's just so fascinating to me, and this is what Senator Sanders always says to me when he comes on the show is he goes, ben, the biggest issues out there are the ones that are being least discussed in the media, but most discussed by the people. Like if you go to a fight the oligarchy rally. If I go to a rally, you hear what the people are saying. It's just fascinating. This is where, you know, where our network came along. I'm like, but we realize that everybody's actually talking about these things, not these things. And so the people are out there saying these things at your rally. Their fear of AI, their hatred of these data centers popping up and stealing their energy. You know, these fears are out there and we, and I think we gotta channel it and harness it in a way that provides solutions.
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Shoikat Chakrabadi
Yeah. And I think the thing that the Democrats often miss is these fears and challenges. People recognize that they're huge. They're these big country defining, era defining problems. And often the Democratic Party wants to try to figure out how to triangulate and say the exact right thing. To different populations. But what people are really craving, and this is what I'm seeing in my campaign, is people want to hear ideas that are as big as the problems that you want to tackle. So when it comes to something like AI the regulations that politicians, I mean, most politicians aren't even talking about other than Bernie Sanders, but the regulations most politicians are proposing, everyone knows they're way too small. And they're not going to tackle this challenge of something that might wipe out half of all our jobs or wipe out humanity itself. Right. So we have to be talking about the future of the country in a way that scales. And I think it honestly is forcing this bigger conversation about what is our country for, what is our economy for, what are the values we have as a nation. The right actually has that conversation. They have their view of what direction to take this country. And I think on the democratic side, we don't grapple with those larger philosophical questions, but we have to present big ideas, bold ideas. And that's something that the party sometimes just seems too scared to do.
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Ben
I think right now, with everything we're seeing, as you mentioned, with the Epstein files, seeing the sex trafficking ring, but seeing the COVID up and the cabal and all of these, you know, all of these people in the files with Epstein as the middleman playing, you know, basically master of the universe, and whether it's propping up a Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, leading Brexit in the uk, knowing about the annexation of Crimea beforehand, seeming seemingly insider trading on crypto and proposing crypto strategies to Vladimir Putin. You know, these people were puppeteering behind the scenes, the destruction that frankly led to Trump. But viewing it just as Trump to me is myopic and is small. I mean, this is manifest, frankly, internationally with Nigel Farage, with Orban in Hungary, with Melaye in Argent. There are broader forces to me that are sweeping the world and broader forces need to exist to fight back against it. Otherwise, I'm like, you're bringing a butter knife to an F35 fight if you think that petty domestic politics are going to be the solution to these authoritarian goals.
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Shoikat Chakrabadi
Yeah, and I think it's what is showing very clearly from the Epstein files is there is an Epstein class and they are the ones that are the problem. It's really not progressives versus moderates or even left versus right. At the people level. It is the bigger problem is this class of people who are trying to run everything, trying to take control, consolidate power, allying with the oligarchs in our country. And Then there's the rest of us who are trying to fight back against that. And the rest of us. People hate this. I mean, this is why the Trump administration is trying to avoid everything about the Epstein files right now. But frankly, other than a few Democrats and people like Ro Khanna and Tom Massey on the Republican side, a lot of Democrats are kind of avoiding it as well because they're worried about some of their own who might be in those files. I think we have to have accountability across the board. There's going to be a big reset. I think this is going to be the question of our time, of do we hold rich and powerful people accountable when they do heinous, heinous crimes, or do we not? And if the answer to that is no, I do think that's an existential threat to our democracy and our way of. Of being. Our entire system. We have to have the rule of law for everybody. And this is going to be one of the deciding cases for it.
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Ben
You know, I saw protests at town halls regarding data centers in Trump country, Oklahoma, yesterday. I saw, you know, and frankly, across the country, we're seeing as people want to put either these data centers or, frankly, even the ICE detention centers. I mean, you start to get a not in my backyard moment, and even from kind of the Trumpers. And so you have this don't do that here. But also the kind of abundance argument also of why are you putting stuff in here that takes and leeches and destroys when really you could be doing this stuff is build. You know, what I always like to say on the show, what I loved about your campaign is I love campaigns. And to me, you know, one of the things that I think about your campaign is just the word imagine. Like, imagine a world where instead of having ICE and Border Patrol masked agents going around torturing and terrorizing individuals, and doge destroying and taking away and firing and crushing, those exact same resources were harnessed to build housing and all. And rather than seeing mass agents, we saw new houses developing and services being provided to homeless people. You know, unhoused people. Like, to me, imagine that world. Trump would be super popular, and anyone who does that would be super popular.
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Shoikat Chakrabadi
Yeah, I mean, we've basically have created a federal jobs program to terrorize people through ice. Right. But what if we use that instead to actually develop things, build things people want? I mean, this is the same thing when it comes to our foreign policy. Right. Where we are spending. You know, we had a $900 billion defense budget that just passed a few months ago, and about 115 Democrats voted for that, by the way. And we are spending all this money on dropping bombs in other countries and doing these endless wars. But no one wants that. If you do the look at the polling, only about 3% of Democrats and only 16% of Republicans want a larger defense budget. Because that argument of we could be spending all this money and all these resources developing our own means of making a living, that really works. But you know, when it comes to AI and the data centers, you're absolutely right. It's a completely bipartisan issue, both on the data centers themselves and the energy they're gobbling up and how it's driving up people's home and energy prices. But the larger question here of right now we have this technology that might be wiping out half of our jobs and basically determining the future of our society. Why should a handful of tech CEOs get to determine that future? Why should they have all that power? Right? And it's a technology that fundamentally was trained off of the sum product of human labor, of the things we produce. That's how these LLMs get trained. So I believe that we should have an ownership stake of it, on it. Right? We should. We as a people, democracy, should be able to determine the future of our country, not just a few tech oligarchs. And that is a message that I think the vast majority of people agree with, Democrat and Republican. They do not like the idea of a small cabal of powerful people determining the fates for everybody else.
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Ben
So when people, people know about your background, they know about aoc, they know about some of the organizations you've run. But also you were, you were in tech before. I mean, you started a company, Mockingbird. You were one of the first engineers at Stripe, but you didn't fall into this. You didn't go the way of some of the tech bros right now who have used their wealth and their resources to, to destroy and harm. And so I'm just interested kind of in your reflection on that moment because you don't have to go the way of these kind of tech bros who, you know, by the way, you know, what do they used to say? Like they want to brag that they have FU money or whatever, but they just have to do whatever Donald Trump tells them to do. And now their legacies are like hard hurting people. So, so I know, talk to us a little bit about that for people just to know what your background is as well, if they haven't heard your story.
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Shoikat Chakrabadi
Yeah, I honestly don't understand how you go down that Route. I didn't come from money. I grew up middle class in Texas, going to public schools, and my parents, frankly grew up quite poor. They were from India and my dad was a refugee during partition in India, which was a terrible event where they cut the country up along religious lines. So he grew up with his family of 12, this tiny one bedroom apartment, often having no idea where his next meal would come from. But he came to his country with literally $8 in his pocket, was able to achieve the American dream, got a job and a single income, got me that middle class life. So when I came out of San Francisco, as you mentioned, I work in Silicon Valley. I was an early engineer at Stripe. I was the second engineer there. And just because I was in the right place at the right time, I ended up making a lot of money from that. And that was a radicalizing experience because I don't come from money. And I got this insight into just how inequality works in our society, where the rich can keep getting richer without ever lifting a finger while everybody else just struggles to hang on. And yeah, I mean, I worked hard at Stripe. I'm proud of the stuff I did, but I didn't work harder than a teacher or a nurse or the janitors cleaning our offices did every single day. I just hit the startup lottery. And in an economy like that, where either you hit the lottery and you can have it all, or you'll never be able to afford a home or a secure retirement, that's fundamentally broken. That is a broken system. And I believe it's a threat to our entire way of being. If we can't get to a country where 40 honest hours of work a week is able to afford you a life, then our country is doomed. So that's frankly why I quit the tech industry. I mean, I worked with some of the people that are now in this oligarch class running companies like OpenAI saw their vision of the future, and it's not the vision of the future that I want anything to be a part of. And so I quit and I joined the Bernie campaign in 2016. And I've spent the past 10 years trying to fix this fundamentally broken economy and to put taxes on people like myself, because I think we need to have way higher taxes on the billionaires and the richest in our society.
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Ben
Where can people learn more about the campaign and any final words you want to say to our 6 million subscribers out there?
- [20:24]
Shoikat Chakrabadi
Yeah, Please go to my website. It's Shockat Us, Saikat us. We have a massive volunteer grassroots army here that's running the campaign. We've got over 2,000 people volunteering. We're knocking doors all over the city. If you don't live in the district, you can always phone bank. But I just want to say, like, I know that times seem really dark right now and everything is kind of at an end of the year, but there is this huge movement happening. I mean, I've been working in this for 10 years. I've worked on a ton of insurgent campaigns, from Bernie to AOC to a bunch of the Squad campaigns back in 2018. I have never seen an appetite for change like what I'm seeing today. I believe we can have a movement that completely sweeps in and changes the entire course of the Democratic Party and the entire course of this nation. In fact, that's the only way we get out of this, that's the only way to actually defeat authoritarianism, is if we can prove that democracy can work to improve people's lives. And that's what we're going to do.
- [21:20]
Ben
Shoai Ka Trak, body running for Congress, California's 11th congressional district thanks so much for joining.
- [21:26]
Shoikat Chakrabadi
Thanks for having me, everybody.
- [21:28]
Ben
Hit subscribe let's get to that 6 million subscriber mark this week. Want to stay plugged in?
- [21:32]
Shoikat Chakrabadi
Become a subscriber to our substack@midasplus.com you'll
- [21:36]
Ben
get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad
- [21:38]
Shoikat Chakrabadi
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- [21:40]
Ben
exclusive content only available@midasplus.com
- [21:47]
Commercial Announcer
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