Congressman Greg Kasar (3:12)

Look, the new affordability agenda is the Progressive Caucus's 10 point plan to bring down costs for everyday people, especially by taking on the big corporations and the ultra rich that are screwing you over and making their money, jacking up your prices. And the reason that we put this agenda out now is because we want candidates campaigning on this agenda in their primaries. We want people to win their elections by going and connecting with their voters about driving down costs. And then here's the radical part. If we take the majority, I want us to pass these kinds of policies to bring down your utility bill, $500 next year, to pass policies to cap your childcare cost or reduce the cost that prescription drugs cost, and then dare Donald Trump to try to block it. If they pass it, great. If they block it, then voters will know who to blame. But right now, the idea I hear from a lot of voters is, okay, they know who Trump is. They might be really pissed off at his lies and how he is, but they want to know what Democrats stand for, especially when it comes to these day to day economic issues.

Host/Interviewer (4:17)

It sounds like you find these planks achievable and, you know, the ability to kind of keep Democrats together and kind of unify the caucus around them. Can you explain that to me? Because, you know, Congress hasn't necessarily gotten itself a reputation for passing big bills over the last couple years. How achievable is this stuff?

Congressman Greg Kasar (4:34)

Voters are so upset and rightfully pissed off right now at the way their costs keep going up and up and up for sure. And so I hear from elected officials all over, but especially my Democratic colleagues, that we've got to do something about this. And so I think this is a key opportunity to finally beat Big Pharma and start producing tons of our own generic drugs as a country and collapse the prices of so many of the drugs people rely on for their health care. Right now is a moment to finally take on these super PACs that are trying to buy politicians and elections and policies. And so I smell blood in the water in this moment. While voters are upset to forge a new consensus in the Democratic Party.

Host/Interviewer (5:18)

If I hear you right, it sounds like you're saying some of this agenda should be seen as a signal to fellow Democrats in 2026, 2028, saying this is what affordability means to us.

Congressman Greg Kasar (5:28)

Yeah, look, as a progressive in a progressive district, I could put forward an economic agenda that polls really well in Austin, Texas, but maybe has more trouble, say in some rural parts of the country. We chose strategically not to do that and instead put out an agenda that polls very well with two out of three Trump voters, seven out of 10 independents. And I didn't just do that for political reasons. We did that because we want to get this agenda passed. This is a kind of no excuses agenda. It plays well in every district and helps voters with the thing we hear number one from every day, especially disengaged voters about, which is how damn expensive life is getting in this country to that point.

Host/Interviewer (6:13)

Is that the reason that I don't see things like climate change or even Medicare for All listed amongst these planks? You're mentioning that you wanted to focus on things that have consensus or across the party and across kind of an achievable group of people. Is that the reason? I feel like some progressive priorities that of the past, I remember hearing things like the Green New Deal, for example, aren't on this list.

Congressman Greg Kasar (6:35)

So as a progressive caucus, we have things called our flagship agenda that includes Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. We keep on fighting for those flagship bills and to bring more parts of the party together around on those ideas. But you're right, it is not the overwhelming number of Democratic members of Congress. That's part of my job, is to keep convincing folks on those issues. But these are not our flagships. This new slate are our battleships that go in addition to our flagships. These are the kinds of issues. Flagships and battleships, yeah, these battleships, man, we've got in some cases 80% support of voters, not just right now, but consistently. And so let's move that stuff since we can have consensus on it while still pushing for the big ideas.

Host/Interviewer (7:18)

It does feel a little bit though that Democrats are talking about climate less true.

Congressman Greg Kasar (7:23)

I think that what we need to make sure we do in the climate movement is connected to everyday people's lives. The moment that Republicans tried to make it seem that tackling the climate crisis was about buying more expensive products or was kind of an elite luxury, we took a big hit. And so I think that it's very important if we care about having a livable climate agenda. We need to talk about how electrification is Going to make things cheaper. Let's get this restarted by taking on the insane price of your electric bill. Earn people's trust and then show folks how a agenda on climate can actually make your life more affordable instead of more expensive.

Host/Interviewer (8:02)

I hear the connection between climate and affordability that maybe wasn't front and center five or six years ago. I wanted to also ask about the ban on surveillance pricing in particular. I know you introduced a bill on that policy and your bill would prohibit the use of surveillance based pricing and wage setting. It would also prevent the use of AI to set wages and personal data like an individual's finance history, rather than their performance. This all makes sense to me, but I wanted to ask that. It feels kind of downstream from a bigger question of tech and AI regulation that we've heard from members of the House who have called for a moratorium on data centers. Overall, I was wondering why isn't something like that on this list and it's instead a focus on surveillance pricing and that more narrow issue.

Congressman Greg Kasar (8:45)

We need AI regulations big time. But let's get started with, in my view, taking on the AI lobby on something that makes sense to basically everybody watching at home.

Host/Interviewer (8:59)

So this is still a priority of that achievability, it sounds like.

Congressman Greg Kasar (9:02)

Yeah, yeah, but let's just talk about the surveillance pricing just for a second because it frankly pisses people off. We had the other day, somebody on Twitter tweet at JetBlue, I'm trying to get to a funeral. Somebody just died. And in the last day, the price on this flight has gone up like $250. And the customer service rep responded from JetBlue saying, Clear your cash, clear your cookies. And this is the thing that people know is going on. You're getting your private data scooped up, they run it through AI and they figure out how to set a price for you. That is the kind of thing that should unite Democrats, but also tons of independent and Republican voters to say, yeah, these folks are using AI to screw us.

Host/Interviewer (9:46)

Part of the premise of this episode is we want to break down buzzwords like affordability and even progressive. You know, we talked about the former, but I think the latter matters as well, as it's one that can be misdefined. What does being a progressive mean to you in 2026 and how would you distinguish it from just being a Democrat?

Congressman Greg Kasar (10:03)

For me, being a progressive means at least two things. One, being willing to unite lots and lots of people. All of the folks that are getting screwed over against the powers that be that are making your Life worse. Whether that is oppressing you on a civil rights issue or jacking up your costs like we just talked about. It's about bringing the everyday person that may not have money power, but should have political power together to take them on. And then second, I think being progressive is essentially a hopeful enterprise that you think. I think that the world can be much better, that we don't have to settle for crumbs or settle for the status quo. How does that differentiate you from what we're seeing in establishment Democratic politics today?

Host/Interviewer (10:50)

Yeah, traditional Democrat.

Congressman Greg Kasar (10:52)

Yeah. If we want to talk about AI, which you just asked me a question about AI, I think a lot of the establishment traditional Democratic politics, this is happening in Washington D.C. right now, are telling candidates, don't even say the words AI. And if you do say there needs to be safety but innovation and then shut up. The traditional democratic politics is don't step out there, don't take a risk, because maybe AI lobbyists are gonna spend tons of money against you in a campaign. Or there's a lot of sort of democratic politics that says we've gotta be in this race against China on AI. And so we can't have guardrails against surveillance, we can't have guardrails against it taking your job because we've got to beat China. And in my view, being progressive means let's unite all the people that are getting their costs jacked up and have them vote for a politician even if the AI industry spends against them. That's the uniting working people part of being progressive. And then the hopeful part of being progressive is, is saying, well, look, I don't want to become a surveillance state and there's race against China. I don't want us to have to lose our jobs. We can ask for more than the status quo. And I think the hopeful part of being progressive is that we can all come together and figure out how it doesn't make us poorer and how it doesn't actually make us an authoritarian state that starts seeming similar to the countries we're racing against.

Host/Interviewer (12:17)

I wanna ask you maybe that same question though, and flip it. If we asked most Americans what they think being a progressive meant, what issues do you think they would come back with? Like if we asked them to define a progressive member of Congress, do you think that they would say the same thing?

Congressman Greg Kasar (12:32)

I think you get all different kinds of answers. But if I am willing to be critical of our own movement or critical of, you know, we always gotta be self critical because I want to win. And in many ways we had some very significant losses, especially against Donald Trump just last presidential election. What I think is really important is for people to know that we care about your everyday ability to pay for your childcare and your housing and save some for retirement. But there are lots of folks who think that general civil rights might be our very first idea or ideal. And I of course believe in that deeply. But I think we will continue to lose immigrant rights, continue to lose LGBT rights, we'll continue to lose on those if we do not regain people's trust. On your day to day economics. And I think once we reclaim that, I think we will be able to restore a lot of those civil rights that we've lost.

Host/Interviewer (13:30)

You know, to the point about Republican branding, obviously Donald Trump did a lot of that in the last election. And to your point, did it somewhat successfully. You know, his most effective ad of the 2024 cycle, at least if you believe the numbers, was the spot that declared Kamala Harris was for they them, not you.

Congressman Greg Kasar (13:44)

Kamala supports taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners, surgery for prisoners for prisoners.

Commercial Voice 1 (13:52)

Every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access.

Host/Interviewer (13:57)

And I've been across the country as people have used that ad or even just the progressive focus on cultural issues, to your point, to kind of say that the party had been pulled away from its core concerns. Is those things no longer a priority for progressives?

Congressman Greg Kasar (14:14)

We should of course defend groups that are being attacked by Donald Trump, trans folks, immigrants, whoever it might be. What we also need to do is point out who the real villains are because Donald Trump told this complete story. He said, your rent is going up. Let's blame it on some Venezuelan immigrants. Your health care is getting worse. Let's blame it on wokeness. But it was not wokeness that raised your rent. It was a Wall street hedge fund, right? It was not trans folks that made your healthcare worse. It's a healthcare CEO. But I don't think we told that story. I think what we need to do is make sure we're targeting the real villains in the story. Because there's a lot of people here in Texas who go, greg, you might be more progressive or more liberal than me on this or that social issue, but you care about making sure I can afford my house without having to work 10, 20 hours of overtime every single week. You know what I'll be for you. Even if we may have our differences on this issue or that, and that's the kind of coalition I think we need to be able to build.

Host/Interviewer (15:14)

I wanna ask about what more. Let's talk about Defund the police. Because I read in 2020 that you were one of the elected officials that kind of stood with Austin's movement, and they were one of the few cities that successfully reallocated funds from the police budget to other issues like housing. These days, even folks like Zoramdani here in New York have reversed their support for that idea, largely. I wondered what you thought about that. What do progressives think about crime and public safety now as opposed to then?

Congressman Greg Kasar (15:41)

I was always wary of the slogan, even in those times, because that meant that people didn't hear what I had to say next, which is, you know what. What if we move our DNA labs out from under police departments and have them run scientifically? What if some of the money that we are spending just throwing money at the police association and police unions, let's take some of that. Set up domestic violence shelters so that people aren't having to call 911 over and over and over again because they can't get out of an abusive situation. So I think we need to claim public safety and civil rights, and I think we can't just abandon the movement for police reform. But I do think that we've got to get people to understand beyond the slogans that we care about, not just civil rights, we care about civil rights, but also their safety.

Host/Interviewer (16:28)

I guess I want to, though, ask that question more specifically. Were Democrats, or specifically progressives over the last election cycle too deferential to sloganeering, too deferential to certain interests or public groups that didn't want them to be as explicit on maybe saying where there was a disconnect between progressive class and the working class? Like, why wasn't that said at the time? Like, couldn't you have said, I don't like the slogan?

Congressman Greg Kasar (16:54)

Here's what I think is so important, is that I think people need to know that we're going to put your interest as a working person first. I knew, and I'll tell you a story from the Harris campaign specifically. I went out to Nevada to campaign for the vice president, who I was a strong supporter of in that election. And it's when I knew we were very likely gonna lose. I went and sat in rooms with all these Latino voters. So many people who said, look, I voted for Obama, I voted for Clinton. Lots of folks who said, I voted for Joe, but this time I'm going to vote for Trump. And when I asked them why, I got answers like, I feel like y' all are focused on other stuff. And when I pushed them on what other stuff? Meant they brought up the cultural issues and I think that that is the mistake that we've made. That isn't just the vice on the vice president, her short campaign. It is, I think a Democratic Party brand issue. And we've got to change the brand now in the election season because if all people learn about our brand is that we're the anti Trump party and they never learn what we're for, then that will have been a big mistake and a huge failure.

Host/Interviewer (18:05)

Congressman Kzar, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate your time.

Congressman Greg Kasar (18:08)

Thanks a bunch.

Host/Interviewer (18:10)

Next up, we're headed to Queens, home of one of the most progressive districts in the country, and we're gonna go to the streets to ask people directly, what do you actually want from progressives?

Voter 1 (18:20)

Foreign.

Commercial Voice 2 (18:26)

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Matt Buchel (19:23)

Hey, I'm Matt Buchel, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your fyp. And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, Don't Swipe Away, it's called. That sounds like a lot. I'm gonna start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world and then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or honestly, anyone who responds to my dm. This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to feel a little bit better about it. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. That sounds like a lot. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Host/Interviewer (19:54)

So after talking to Congressman Kzar, I decided to come to Astoria, one of the biggest neighborhoods in Queens and part of New York's 7th congressional district, which is statistically one of the most progressive areas in the country. It's actually so progressive, in fact, it got nicknamed the Commie corridor. So we're going to talk to some voters here and see what progressive means to them. Let's go. When you think of the word progressive, what does that mean to you? More modern. More modern. Less tradition, More. I don't know, there's just new things around here, new ideas.

Commercial Voice 2 (20:28)

New ideas, yeah.

Host/Interviewer (20:30)

Do you have any issue that comes up like at the top of the list? If someone said I'm a progressive, is there something you expect respect of them?

Congressman Greg Kasar (20:38)

I guess equality and affordability.

Host/Interviewer (20:40)

Equality and affordability will be top of the list.

Congressman Greg Kasar (20:42)

Yeah.

Host/Interviewer (20:43)

We talked to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the progressive group in Congress and they have a new 10 point plan about affordability, about how to make people's lives more affordable. I want to show you it and get your reaction. So these are the different planks that they are trying to focus on. And I guess for you, I would love to know what you find the most important out of that list. And is there something on that list you wish was there?

Congressman Greg Kasar (21:04)

Oh, wow. Vacation time. People can afford money. Getting big money out of politics. Wow. Is that even a possibility?

Host/Interviewer (21:13)

I mean, that's why I think a lot of people's question is like, is that even viable?

Congressman Greg Kasar (21:16)

I know, I was like saying I didn't even think that was, I thought that was non existent. I, I guess, you know, I think

Voter 1 (21:22)

like, you know, you want people to

Congressman Greg Kasar (21:23)

live well, you don't want them to just survive.

Host/Interviewer (21:26)

So you live in the 70s district. I'll hill a bath. This makes me feel. This makes me feel sporty. So you live in the seven corrections? I do.

Voter 2 (21:33)

I live up on Ditmore.

Host/Interviewer (21:34)

If someone calls themselves a progressive Democrat, what do you think that means?

Voter 2 (21:38)

Well, I got, I got a state. I'm from Kansas originally. I moved here about 10 years ago. So I'm from a very red state. My parents are hog farmers. Oh. So that's how I was born and raised. So moving out here was a bit of a culture shock. Progressive has a negative connotation in Kansas.

Host/Interviewer (21:54)

You know, they actually laid out a 10 point plan of what they said was there for the. I got it actually written down for you. You are in luck. Can't wait to agree with you. You are in luck because right there is a Congressional Progressive Caucus's 10 point plan, all right. Of how to make calls. I am not. I'm actually here because I want folks's real response to it. All right? You can love it, you can hate it, it's up to you.

Voter 2 (22:16)

Prescription drugs. I do not know enough about this.

Host/Interviewer (22:19)

So they're actually so. So some of these are like a matter of cost cutting. So they're saying that imposing a corporate tax and refunding that money to consumers, or.

Voter 2 (22:30)

So we don't tax corporations enough.

Host/Interviewer (22:32)

Their argument was that they should tax them more.

Voter 2 (22:34)

They're just trying to drive them out.

Host/Interviewer (22:37)

So when we think about all the priorities, when we think about the priorities that Democrats and progressives have talked about, it doesn't always sound like cost of living. Sometimes it's been LGBT rights, abortion rights, immigrant rights. Like, you know, they've been thinking more about social, cultural issues. I mean, how much do they focus on that versus things like cost of living?

Congressman Greg Kasar (22:55)

None.

Host/Interviewer (22:56)

Oh, you think that you're saying focus on the money, focus on affordability, because

Voter 1 (23:01)

that is what all humans can relate to.

Commercial Voice 1 (23:03)

We all work.

Voter 1 (23:04)

If you work, that means you want a better life. Not even you want a roof over your head, you want to eat. If you work, it's because you want to. Not want to walk around naked. You need clothes. You need to eat. You need to be healthy. You need help. That means groceries. That means money. So money is essentially the root of everything. I don't care if you're gay. I don't care if you have all that. That's like secondary third. That's not a priority. So, yes, that should have been the main focus.

Host/Interviewer (23:28)

So here's a little secret. I actually live in New York's 7th congressional district, so it doesn't surprise me at all that when you ask people about the progressive nature of this community or about the diverse nature of this community, the they have a lot to say. And when we talk to people, they really helped us understand buzzwords like affordability and progressive a lot clearer. I feel like I heard people say that they wanted their members of Congress to prioritize cost of living above everything else, even if that means deprioritizing some of the cultural issues that progressives have focused on in the last four or five years. In fact, it sounded pretty close to what Congressman Kzar told me in our interview, that these are connected issues and that a politician gains credibility on one by leading on the other. America actually will be in your feeds every Saturday with an interesting interview in politics and culture. And you can, of course, listen to America actually in the Today Explained feed or wherever you get your podcasts. Support the show by going to Vox.com members. That's Vox.com members. See you next week. And cue the music.