Congressman Jamaal Bowman–I Was In The House

Summary

Podcast Summary: Toure Show – Congressman Jamaal Bowman: “I Was In The House”

Release Date: January 22, 2025
Host: DCP Entertainment
Guest: Congressman Jamaal Bowman

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Toure Show, host Touré engages in an in-depth conversation with Congressman Jamaal Bowman. Bowman shares his firsthand experiences within the U.S. House of Representatives, offering listeners an unfiltered look into the complexities of American politics, the influence of special interests, and the challenges faced by progressive legislators.

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Functioning of Congress

Daily Operations and Legislative Process

Bowman begins by demystifying the daily routine of a congressperson. He outlines a typical day filled with legislative duties, fundraising efforts, and interactions with constituents and lobbyists.

• Key Activities:
  • Morning Rituals: Starting the day with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by brief speeches on various topics.
  • Debates and Voting: Engaging in debates over bills, followed by voting sessions that can span several hours depending on the bill's significance.
  • Fundraising: Constantly raising funds through phone calls and attending events hosted by lobbyists, essential for re-election campaigns.

Quote:

• Bowman reflects on the primary focus of elected officials, stating, “That might be the best question I've ever been asked” ([00:36]).

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The TikTok Legislation

Bipartisan Hysteria and Legislative Speed

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the rapid passage of TikTok legislation. Bowman expresses surprise at the swift bipartisan support, questioning the genuine threats posed by TikTok.

• Concerns Raised:
  • Lack of substantial briefings on the alleged dangers of TikTok.
  • Predominantly young, Democrat-leaning users being affected.
  • Contradictory information from high-ranking officials indicating Facebook poses a greater data threat than TikTok.

Quote:

• Bowman criticizes the narrative surrounding TikTok, stating, “Republicans were the leaders of this and it was just a lot of fear mongering around China” ([05:01]).

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Special Interests and Funding in Politics

The Power of Big Money and Lobbying

Bowman delves into the pervasive influence of special interests and corporate funding in Congress, highlighting how economic elites shape legislation more than constituent desires.

• Key Points:
  • Corporate PACs: Most members accept corporate PAC money, allowing big industries like fossil fuels, tech, and pharmaceuticals to wield significant influence.
  • Lobbyist Relationships: Developing relationships with lobbyists through events and personal interactions ensures continued financial support and legislative backing.
  • Grassroots Funding: Bowman positions himself as an exception, relying primarily on small-dollar donations to resist corporate influence.

Quotes:

• Bowman explains the necessity of fundraising, “You need the money to run your campaign, you need it for flyers, you need to hire people” ([32:00]).
• On corporate influence, “Big Tech, there's tech, I forget the ranking, but there's like fossil fuels, oil, big oil, big gas” ([33:20]).

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Differences Between the House and the Senate

Legislative Procedures and Power Dynamics

Bowman contrasts the House of Representatives with the Senate, emphasizing procedural differences and their impacts on legislation.

• House of Representatives:

  • Requires a simple majority to pass bills.
  • More members (435), leading to a faster legislative process but potentially less thorough debate.

• Senate:

  • Necessitates a 60-vote supermajority to overcome the filibuster, making it harder to pass legislation.
  • Fewer members (100), allowing for more deliberate but slower legislative action.

Quote:

• Bowman highlights the Senate's obstruction tactics, “You don't even have to do that anymore. Just say, I'm not rocking with the bill” ([17:01]).

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Supreme Court and Ethics Reform

Capacity and Accountability Issues

Bowman addresses the inefficiencies and ethical concerns surrounding the Supreme Court, advocating for reforms to enhance its functionality and accountability.

• Key Issues:
  • Court Size: The Supreme Court has remained at nine members despite the U.S. population growing from 30 million to 330 million, limiting its capacity.
  • Ethics Concerns: Calls for term limits and stricter ethical guidelines to prevent undue influence from billionaires and special interests.

Quote:

• Bowman insists on the need for reform, “We need to hear all the cases. Right. We don't have the capacity to do that” ([18:36]).

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Israel-Palestine Geopolitical Situation

U.S. Involvement and Ethical Dilemmas

Bowman provides his perspective on the U.S. relationship with Israel, critiquing the substantial financial aid despite ongoing human rights issues.

• Key Points:
  • Strategic Necessity vs. Moral Responsibility: While Israel is seen as a strategic ally in the Middle East, Bowman questions the moral implications of continued financial support amid accusations of apartheid and human rights violations.
  • Influence of Lobbies: The disproportionate influence of pro-Israel lobbies compared to pro-Palestinian voices in Congress contributes to biased policy-making.

Quote:

• Bowman states his disapproval of the U.S. support for Israel, “I don't believe that it's beneficial for America to do so” ([38:43]).

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Challenges in Elections and Demographics

Redistricting and Voter Suppression

Bowman discusses the impact of redistricting on electoral outcomes, specifically how gerrymandering has diluted minority votes.

• Key Issues:
  • Gerrymandering: Strategic redrawing of districts to minimize the electoral impact of Black and minority voters, affecting candidates like Bowman who represent diverse constituencies.
  • Voting Dynamics: Low voter turnout among key demographics such as young voters, Arab, and Muslim communities significantly influences election results.

Quote:

• Bowman recounts the challenges of redistricting, “They took 200,000 Black people out of my district. Crazy” ([55:36]).

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Legislative Process and Effective Legislation

Persuasion and Collaboration

Bowman emphasizes the importance of negotiation and collaboration in passing effective legislation, contrasting it with the current polarized environment.

• Key Strategies:
  • Building Consensus: Engaging colleagues in meaningful discussions to address concerns and make necessary amendments to gain support.
  • Balancing Ideals and Practicality: Striking a balance between progressive ideals and pragmatic legislative solutions to achieve tangible results.

Quote:

• Bowman describes the legislative process, “We are making the argument as to why this legislation is important not just for our districts, but for the country” ([72:13]).

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Conclusion

Congressman Jamaal Bowman provides a candid and critical look into the inner workings of Congress, highlighting the challenges posed by special interests, procedural hurdles, and the pervasive influence of money in politics. He calls for comprehensive reforms, greater ethical accountability, and a return to legislative priorities that genuinely reflect the needs of the American populace. Bowman's insights offer valuable lessons for aspiring politicians and engaged citizens alike, underscoring the importance of courage, collaboration, and integrity in the pursuit of effective governance.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

1. On Fear Mongering in Congress:

   • “Exactly, Republicans were the leaders of this and it was just a lot of fear mongering around China.” ([05:01])

2. On Public Perception vs. Reality:

   • “The public perception is very powerful in politics, especially in Congress.” ([07:24])

3. On Big Money in Politics:

   • “We are talking about big money in politics. We're talking about special interests, we're talking about public perception, we're talking about donors.” ([10:12])

4. On the Senate Filibuster:

   • “It's just a decision that majority leaders in the Senate have made to keep things equitable.” ([15:34])

5. On Supreme Court Ethics:

   • “We need ethics reform of the Supreme Court. We got billionaires buying, you know, taking Supreme Court members on yachts and paying for paying your mom's mortgage.” ([18:59])

6. On U.S. Support for Israel:

   • “I don't believe that it's beneficial for America to do so.” ([38:43])

7. On Redistricting and Voter Suppression:

   • “They took 200,000 Black people out of my district. Crazy.” ([55:36])

8. On Effective Legislation:

   • “We are making the argument as to why this legislation is important not just for our districts, but for the country.” ([72:13])

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This episode of the Toure Show serves as an enlightening exploration of the intricate and often contentious landscape of American politics, shedding light on the systemic issues that hinder genuine governance and progress.

Transcript

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The tour ratio okay though. Detour ratio okay though.

[A]

That might be the best question I've ever been asked.

[B]

You's a phenomenal person. I mean you legendary. I am a fan of you, my brother. Here's a schedule. When I'm in Washington, you know, call to order, 9am Say the Pledge of Allegiance. There's some one minute speeches, maybe some five minute speeches about a variety of topics. Debate begins at some point during the day about bills we're going to vote on. Then we go vote on those bills. It could be one vote series that can take maybe an hour, hour and a half or shorter, or a second vote series. Rarely is there three unless we got to pass a big bill when you're not. And then when you're done voting and maybe even before you start voting, you're on the phone raising money.

[A]

That's what elected officials spend most of their time. You're on the phone raising money, talking.

[B]

To donors, talking to donors, raising money or going to an event that a lobbyist put together in the evening where there's free food and drink just to show your face and just to be in relationship with them so they could cut you a check.

[A]

Congressman Jamaal Bowman is back to talk about the way things are in Congress. I want to know how it really functions, the relationships between Dems and Republicans, how you get somebody to. Yes, all those little things that you would know if you were a congressperson. He's breaking down all the realities of being in the House. Let's get into it. It's my man Jamal Bowman taking us inside Congress on Toray Show. Congressman, how are you?

[B]

What's up man? I'm good. How are you?

[A]

I want you to help me demystify some of the place that you have come from because it's incredibly important. I don't think a lot of people understand. I mean like a lot of people are talking about the TikTok legislation right now. This happened incredibly rapidly in a bipartisan Fashion. I'm shocked that they were able to get anything done this fast at all.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And now we have people saying, no, no, no, let's run it back and do it again. Because I voted against it, not thinking that it would get banned. And I'm like, you voted against it? Think what?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in many ways Congress is baked within and function as like a fear mongering institution and a place that exhibits theater much more than governance. And so the TikTok hysteria, and that's what it was, hysteria. Because to your point, you, you know, when I was there, it was like all of a sudden TikTok was the evil empire and Darth Vader was coming to burn down America. And TikTok was code word for China. Right. So Republicans were the leaders of this and it was just a lot of fear mongering around China. And TikTok being the social media arm of a Chinese company, ByteDance in America. The thought was, well, the Chinese may be spying or committing espionage based on gathering data from the users of TikTok in America. And that just took off, man. It was not to use a fire analogy because all the horrible things happened in California, but it just took off. And Democrats started getting on board with Republicans. We got to do something about this. The Chinese are spying on us. And I'm like, okay, I sit. Me personally sit on a science, space and technology committee. I was actually chair of the energy subcommittee and ranking member when Republicans took over. I haven't had one briefing of anyone telling me how dangerous TikTok is. So where is this narrative coming from?

[A]

And.

[B]

And that's what happens, right? They throw again, gasoline on something, on an idea or on a thought. It creates hysteria. And then it just takes off. And then to your point, to the point we were talking about before we got on camera, they'll write a bill and rush a bill through the House of Representatives and force us to vote on it before anyone does any due diligence on, okay, what the hell is going on here? So I was one of the first people out front saying, wait a minute, we can't ban TikTok for a variety of reasons, including one, no one has briefed me on anything related to Chinese espionage. Two, the majority of people using it are young people who tend to lean Democrat. Of course, this is being led by Republicans. And can we have some time to digest what we're talking about? None of those things happened. And so I was against it then. And then I started talking to some very high ranking officials, like the highest ranking officials you could think of. And they told us, and I quote, the Chinese are gathering more data from Facebook than they are from TikTok by far. And one of the Republicans who was in this conversation with me said, well, so TikTok is not the boogeyman that we thought it was. Right. And so, yeah, man. So now. So it was quiet for a while and I guess Trump decided to use it and many others use it. Many elected officials use it.

[A]

Dems came along and voted for this.

[B]

Many did, yes.

[A]

So it's not just the Republican fear mongering. What happened there?

[B]

Well, what happens is you create. The public perception is very powerful in politics, especially in Congress. So if the public generally believes that something is bad, that is TikTok, they'll pressure their members of Congress, they'll call their offices to make sure those members are voting for that thing.

[A]

Wait, is it. Are we talking about the actual perception or are we talking about the perception of the motivated fringe on a given issue?

[B]

Well, probably both, because the fringe can begin the hysteria and then the mainstream takes it over. So.

[A]

But are you guys looking for the actual way that people feel or like the perception of how people feel?

[B]

Both, actually. Both. But the perception is very powerful. The perception, not just with TikTok, with a variety of issues.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

I don't want to be perceived as anti corporation, so I support corporation.

[A]

Weak on crime.

[B]

I don't want to be seen as weak on crime.

[A]

Soft on guns.

[B]

Put soft on guns. Right. Anti Semitic. I don't want to be weak.

[A]

All the examples that we could think of, just they're all pushing toward the right. There's nowhere where the right is saying, well, I don't want to seem off on climate change, so I gotta support that Always.

[B]

Yes, no, the right, and that was my experience, they're masters at the narrative and influencing public perception. And then social media helps because the algorithms are inspired by reptilian brain behavior. So hate, fear, anger, insults, trauma, travels further on social media, which aligns to Republicans in the right. And so that stuff travels further. Right. And I mean, again, we just elected someone guilty of sexual assault to the White House. Hegseth had his hearings yesterday. Multiple accusations of sexual assault, alcoholism, can't even run a small business. And it looks like he's going to be confirmed as a new secretary of Defense.

[A]

Wait, you said that everybody's concerned about public perception. The way that I understand it from the political science is that there is no correlation between what the people want, how much the people want something, and the likelihood of it happening. And there is a very close and direct correlation between economic elites wanting something and how likely it is to happen.

[B]

Why is that, though?

[A]

Well, why is it because they are giving the money.

[B]

Yeah, they're giving the money to the people in Congress, but they also have money in all the other stuff. They got money in the New York Times, they got money in Fox News, they got money in X, formerly known as Twitter. You know, they have resources that they've invested in maintaining their oligarchy and their power. And the rest of us are just trying to scrap and figure it out. And so we're talking about big money in politics. We're talking about special interests, we're talking about public perception, we're talking about donors.

[A]

I mean, so you're saying the elites are creating the public perception, but you guys, Congress is not really looking for. What does the average person think about this? Yeah, they're getting from. What are the elites telling us we should do?

[B]

I've heard multiple times while in Congress and this bugged me out during my freshman term leadership, Democratic leadership, being concerned about votes and decisions we would make on a particular bill because they said the newspapers are gonna report this or the media is going to say this. I've heard Democrat leaders say this in.

[A]

Democrat caucus meetings, that you can't vote this way because media will say that.

[B]

The media is gonna say this. And it's like, whoa, hold on a second. What's right and wrong in terms of our values? What's right and wrong in terms of what our constituents want? Right? And so the frustrating part is the constituents and the general public seem to come last after big money, after special interest, after the media, after the perception, after power. It's people after power, if we ever get to people at all, right? And so. And that's both parties. That's not just a right thing. Democrats, I think, have acquiesced a little too much over the years and put us in a position to have two time president Donald Trump.

[A]

With the TikTok thing. We have, what, 150 million Americans or something who use it and love it. And some of them are elected officials.

[B]

Have small businesses on it.

[A]

But then we have Mark Zuckerberg comes to town, spends 7, $8 million lobbying against it, and we get this legislation, right? And this is the way it goes, that the wealthy get what they want.

[B]

This is capitalism, right? This is capitalism. We can't have China beat us on anything. They have a product. I remember when I first used TikTok, I was like, this shit is way better than these Other is way better than these other social media apps. It's just more dynamic, more engaging, more, more. The user face is crazy. I'm like, oh, this, is this a blow? I'm never going on Facebook again. Right. So Facebook was getting his ass kicked, like, and all the meta companies. So the lobbying happens. Right. And again, just to. Just to underscore that point, because we also need. And this is what I was arguing, not just against TikTok or for TikTok, we need comprehensive legislation to manage social media because it's out of control. It's the wild west. The. The. The advertising dollars, how it makes its money, the mental health issues related to it, the monopoly of it. Right. Like, social media is a mess. And so we need comprehensive Internet safety and security overall. But yeah, man, it's Zuckerberg, man, and Facebook and all of that. It's just the lobbying of it.

[A]

This is. Again, we see the wealthy push and get what they want.

[B]

Yeah, well, there was a bill before the whole TikTok thing to break up Big Tech. It was a bipartisan bill, and we met about it as a Democratic caucus, and you had Democrats pushing back on the bill, and this bill was supported by leadership, and Democrats were pushing back, and it never got to the floor for a vote. Big Tech, again, it's a monopoly. It should be broken up. That's why the ftc.

[A]

You want to break up what? Google, Apple and Facebook.

[B]

Google, Facebook. I think Apple was a part of it. Google, Facebook, Google, Meta were the big parts of it, you know, because of their. Because of their pricing structures and how they're just monopolizing the industry, killing local newspapers, not being accountable as journalists, allowing fake news to proliferate. All the stuff that they do, they need to be broken up and held accountable.

[A]

Okay, so explain to me some of the differences between being in Congress and being in the Senate.

[B]

Being in the House versus the Senate.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yes. Being in the House versus being in the Senate. Yes, of course.

[B]

So in the House, you only need a simple majority to pass a bill. In the Senate, you need a super majority. The Senate is 100 members. In the Senate, you need a 6040 split to pass a bill because of something called the filibuster. This is not in the Constitution. This is not a law. This is just a decision that majority leaders in the Senate have made to keep things equitable. Right.

[A]

Well, this is good for the Democratic Party.

[B]

Say it again. This is good for the Democratic Party in this moment. Right.

[A]

We may never. It's hard for the Democrats cluster in cities. So Republicans will probably always, or for a very long time, until there's a major realignment, have an advantage in how many states that they control.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So if we get rid of the filibuster, we'll never have 51.

[B]

Well, it's important to discuss why we have this filibuster. Right. Like when you talk about the history of fighting to pass civil rights legislation and Dixiecrats, Southern Democrats did not want that to happen. Voila. Let's create this filibuster thing where you need a 60, 40 majority to pass these bills. What's bad about it is we don't even have something called the talking filibuster.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so it used to be that.

[A]

A group of senators, one or a group of senators would just sit there and talk.

[B]

You have to stand up there and make your argument articulate why you are.

[A]

Against a bill for maybe 12 hours.

[B]

Maybe 12 hours. And we're not exaggerating. Somebody will stand there and talk for hours. You don't even have to do that anymore. Just say, I'm not rocking with the bill. You don't have the 60 votes. The bill doesn't even see the light of day. That's why the Senate seems like it doesn't do anything. And it could be changed because it's.

[A]

Harder to get something through the Senate.

[B]

Way harder, because of 60, 40. But to your point that you made, the Senate majority leader of the leading party right now is Republicans. If he or she would have the 50, 51 votes they needed to end the filibuster, they could do that just with a vote, and then they could start passing all kind of stuff. Now, obviously, we don't want that now because Republicans would be doing all kind of stuff. So it's good for us. Now, I think we need a larger conversation about democracy reform and what does that look like for the country? So let's start with the Supreme Court. Right. The supreme court has been nine members since the late 1800s. America was 30 million people there then. America's 330 million people now. The Supreme Court can't even hear all the cases that come across its desk because of the nine members. I support expanding the court, or some people call it packing the court to what, I don't know. Have scholars come in and figure that out.

[A]

You don't know what number you want to get? 13, 15.

[B]

I don't know. The scholars, the legal scholars could figure that out. But we need more on the court because we need to hear all the cases. Right. We don't have the capacity to do that. We need ethics reform of the Supreme Court. We got billionaires buying, you know, taking Supreme Court members on yachts and paying for paying your mom's mortgage and.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I am not making this up. No, I notice.

[A]

I don't know. Clarence Thomas's mother's house.

[B]

Mother's house, yeah. Billionaires for decades. Supreme Court. We need ethics reform. Yeah. I think we need term limits as well.

[A]

For Supreme Court.

[B]

For Supreme Court. Right. Because they're their lifetime. Lifetime appointments.

[A]

What about Congress? What do you want to change in Congress?

[B]

You know, I've heard some real radical ideas I think are very interesting, because right now, in the Senate. One other thing about the senate, you have 100 members. 50. 50, right. Let's say 5150. And what you have, in a sense, is like, minority rule. Because the Republicans tend to lead states that have less population overall, but they have as much power as Democrats, who lead mostly huge states. Right. In these huge states. So I've heard ideas around getting rid of the US Senate and just having a larger house, which I think is pretty interesting.

[A]

We're not gonna get.

[B]

Yeah, but I mean, the point is, you wanna make sure everyone feels represented. And of course, that's not the case now.

[A]

Are senators. Do senators tend to be more, I don't know, arrogant or haughty or something? Cause, like, you know, a senator's vote is a huge. It's a bigger thing than a representative's vote.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So for all the Star wars fans out there, remember when Queen Amidala.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I think so.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

When she was Senator Amidala, she had a security detail.

[A]

Okay?

[B]

Senators in the United States Senate have security detail.

[A]

You went a long way to say they have security.

[B]

Members of the House don't, son. So you talk about bougie or, you know, uppity. They got security. We don't.

[A]

Son, the Senate pays for them to have a guard.

[B]

More than a guard, man. They be rolling deep. Senators got security. We ain't got no security. When I first got elected, one of the first things I did was met with like, you know, my sisters in the squad, Right. Cause I came in squad with them, right. The first thing they told me about was the number of death threats they received, especially as women. Women of color. Right. Number of death threats they received constantly. Now, remember, they took on Trump directly. And remember his chance send them back, he was talking about them. So their death threats were through the roof. They had to pay for their own security out of pocket or with campaign funds. The House didn't provide it. Now, the House gave us a little bit more security after freaking January 6th, because we were like, yo, like, this is crazy. And then the public saw crazy things happen. Remember Nancy? Someone ran up on Nancy Pelosi's house.

[A]

What was it for you? January 6th?

[B]

What was it for me? It was my third day on the job. I wasn't in the chamber. I was in my office, which is right across the street. And so you can get to the office if you know how to get there through the chamber. And so we had security kind of in that area, so if anybody came through, like, it was gonna be a rap. But we were all sheltered in for the entire time, like, literally watching it on cnn like everybody else, like, yo, this is crazy. But after that, we got some security for a little while, and then we got. Then they passed a bill that allowed us to get security in our homes that was paid for by Congress. But members of the House didn't have all that. Senators have that. So, yeah, they are a little.

[A]

Are they more. Do they tend to have a bit more of an arrogance to them?

[B]

Yeah, I wouldn't call it arrogant, but they're senators. I mean, they're statewide elected. Yeah, Right. So Chuck Schumer wins with three and a half million votes. I win with 30,000 votes. I represent 770,000 people. Schumer represents the whole state of New York. Gillibrand represents the whole state of New York.

[A]

Do you see, I don't know, a different sort of person who's able to win a Senate race versus a House race?

[B]

That's a very good question. Historically, probably. But I think that's about to change.

[A]

Like, do you need to be, I don't know, more, quote, unquote, bland to win a Senate race, but you could be more personality to win a House race? Probably.

[B]

Historically, I think I see members of the House as scrappy as hell. Yeah, Like, House members are scrappy.

[A]

They have personality.

[B]

Personality. Well, no, some of us, but scrappy. Right. Like, we. We'll get down and dirty with you. You know, House members tend to be more like that. Senators, you know, again, stereotypically look a bit more polished. Above it all, a little more polished. You know, I've. You know, CO has some bicameral bills. So a bicameral bill is like, there's a House lead and a Senate lead. So I had a bicameral bill to make it easier for. I had a few, but one was to make it easier for college athletes to unionize. Now that we have nil and the other. What was the other one?

[A]

Love that idea.

[B]

The other one was related to affirmative action when they took it away. But, yeah, some of my Senate leads were like old white men who look like, if you watch a movie, what a senator looks like. They look like that. But, yeah, that, to me, the people there. And that's what was so frustrating. There are incredible people in Congress just in terms of their histories, their backgrounds, what they stand for. But I think what's lacking, man, is real courage.

[A]

What do you mean?

[B]

Courage to take on special interests. Courage to take on big money. Courage to speak truth to power. You know, I went there inspired by our culture and our history. Right. And so inspired by the civil Rights movement, inspired by the Black power movement, inspired by Chuck D, Public Enemy and hip hop. You know, I went in there with that energy. So for me, it was like, yo, we. We here to, you know, shake it up a little bit, because this is. We can't pass a federal minimum wage. We don't have housing as a human right bill. We can't. We don't fully. We still don't fully fund our schools. You know, we have a mental health crisis with kids and kids dying by guns, and we're not doing right. So there needs to be more courage and, of course, you know, less racism. Courage.

[A]

Fear. Courage. You are courageous because you are not responding to your fear of something.

[B]

Yeah. Or you're pushing through.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you.

[A]

But what are they afraid of? Is it losing?

[B]

Losing. I think losing. I think embarrassment. Yeah. And I felt this way more over the last year because of our support for war and genocide overseas. I think to many there, there's a subconscious motivation to make sure their people remain in power. And you could fill in the blank on what I mean by their people. Right. People of a certain race, a certain class, a certain gender, a certain sexuality, a certain religion, a certain country background. I think there's a subconscious motivation to just make sure me and my people remain in power. Because I don't know how we can observe an ally committing genocide. And even if you want to say, I still rock with my ally, you can at least say, but what they doing is fucked up.

[A]

It's crazy.

[B]

It's crazy.

[A]

What do you think the sort of people who he worked with, who got elected, what are commonalities among them? What sort of, you know, like, if we went to Harvard, we'd be like, everybody is kind of like, da, da, da, da. And if we went to, you know, I don't know, IBM, like, oh, everybody is like, this. And everybody is self selected to be in that group. So everybody there is kind of like.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, you have a lot of members who served in the military. You have a lot who are small business owners. You have a lot who are some former educators.

[A]

But are they uncommonly driven? Are they hungry for power? They tend to be entitled. Do they tend to be.

[B]

Yeah, I, I get the sense that they just want to kind of do good for their district and the country by extension. And that's the interesting thing about the House in particular, because you have people representing all kinds of districts. Right. Like, I had a debate once with Chip Roy, who's like, he's like one of my favorite Republicans. I don't agree with him on really anything, but he, he's super passionate and super dead serious. Like, he's a small government conservative Republican. Right. We don't need this big government. We need state to have control. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I got to learn about his son and his family and all those things. And it's like he really feels what he's saying. And I complete. Cause my district, if you're of a certain race in my district, you're more likely to be wealthy. If you're the other race, you're more likely to live in poverty. Poverty. And be a victim of police brutality and live through trauma. Like, I can't go there and act like Chip Roy. Right. Or whomever. And so the beauty of it, if it were to work, is the debate over the big ideas. Right. Debate over how do we make this work for the majority of Americans no matter what. Like that being the mission, that being the objective, versus, damn, this is gonna only work for the people that I rock with. And then as I'm saying this out loud, I'm reminded of the special interests that control the whole thing.

[A]

When you say special interests, what do you mean?

[B]

Fossil fuel companies. Right. So fossil fuel companies, you mean like Shell, Like Shell gdp, bp, oil companies. Right. Gas companies. They don't want, they want us to do very little, if anything, on climate change. And if something happens on climate change, they want to be at the forefront of it so that they can reap the benefits of it. Health insurance companies.

[A]

Wait, how did they. What does that mean? Giving you money?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Is it specifically giving you campaign funds now or the promise of you can lobby and make a ton of money.

[B]

After or corporate board seat or whatever? Right. So when we run campaigns, and that's the thing about the House, it's like hair on fire constantly. It's every two years.

[A]

Cause you're running, you're 12 months and.

[B]

You'Re, you may govern from January to June of your, your first year, the rest of the year you're running. And so, and even when you're governed for six months. Yes.

[A]

And then started running your campaign, but.

[B]

Even when you're governing, you're running because, because you're, here's what we do. Here's a schedule. When I'm in Washington, you know, call to order, 9:00am, say the Pledge of Allegiance. There's some one minute speeches, maybe some five minute speeches about a variety of topics. Debate begins at some point during the day about bills we're going to vote on. Then we go vote on those bills. It could be one vote series that can take maybe an hour, hour and a half or shorter, or a second vote series. Rarely is there three, unless we got to pass a big bill when you're not. And then when you're done voting, and maybe even before you start voting, you're on the phone raising money.

[A]

That's what elected officials spend most of their time doing.

[B]

You're on the phone raising money on.

[A]

The phone, talking to donors.

[B]

Talking to donors, raising money or going to an event that a lobbyist put together in the evening where there's free food and drink just to show your face and just to be in relationship with them. So they could cut you a check. Right. And so when you're running for Congress and the numbers probably change now, the max you can receive is $6,600.

[A]

From one individual.

[B]

From one individual. That's 3,300 for the primary, 3,300 for the general. And that's from individuals or their business. Right. Now I was one of these righteous members. We didn't take corporate PAC monies. So if you try to give me money from your business, I wouldn't take it because we wanna get big money out of politics. Corporations are messing things up. So it would be individuals giving money and mostly grassroots. And 85% of my money comes $250 or less. So mostly small dollar. But there's a small minority of us that does this. Most of the people there, they take corporate PAC money and they raise all kind of money. And so. And you need the money to run your campaign, you need it for flyers, you need it to hire people.

[A]

And fossil fuels, Fossil fuel companies are giving most of the money that congressional officials need.

[B]

Yes. No, not most of it. There's tech, I forget the ranking, but there's like fossil fuels, oil, big oil, big gas. There's big Tech, there's health insurance companies, there's pharmaceutical companies, there's big. The military industrial complex, Right. The gun industry, the gun lobby, and many other lobbies that I'm forgetting that give money to campaigns. I mean, you take the lobby that came after me, aipac, right, they're pro Israel lobby. Again, aligned to the military lobby. Because when we give money to Israel, 3.8 billion a year, by the way, most by far any country, that money comes right back to US Weapons manufacturers, right? But you take a lobby like that, they make sure they are not just given money, but they're engaging every member of Congress to make sure Congress continues to support their agenda. And so they're making calls, they're having others make calls, they're given money, they're writing legislation, they're writing resolutions, all of that. And fossil fuel does it too. And you know, and if a bill's coming up that the fossil fuel industry doesn't like, they'll call all of us to make sure we vote against it. If pharmaceutical, same thing. Health insurance, same thing.

[A]

When these calls are made, are they direct or is there like a shorthand of like, we want you to do this or are they like, if you don't do this, we will support, we will not give you campaign funds. We will support somebody else to primary you, to get you out. Like, do they tell you directly that? Or you just know AIPAC does.

[B]

They'll tell you directly like we're coming after you. And they'll tell the world this as well. Because it's a power move to tell the world. Other companies not, not as much, but it's kind of understood, right? I mean, for me, it wasn't, it, it ultimately wasn't just AIPAC that came after me. It was the special interest that I'm generally against, like, you know, APAC crypto, you know, big real estate, you know, like different lobbies kind of banded together to put money up to make sure, you know, they spent more money against me than ever in history. So it's that kind of thing that happens. And, and it's not just a loss in a race. It's the, it's the attacks. I mean, constant ads, constant attacks. You know, they'll bring your family into it if they need to. You know, it's a dirty business and members rather not go through that. A lot of members. So they'll just play ball because for them it's like cost benefit analysis, right? I play ball on this, so I look the other way on this and then I'm able to continue to do good work for my district. And I'll put that in air quotes, because what kind of good work are we really doing if we don't have. We're the only one of the only developed nations that doesn't have paid leave.

[A]

Let's talk about the Israel, Palestine situation as far as why the US Government functions the way that it does, and it seems to just give Israel as much money as we can and then look at us and say, we can't tell them what to do. They make their own choices. They're grownups, and you're funding them and you can't tell them what to do. And, like, Palestine just does not exist. So why do we handle this situation, this geopolitical situation in that way?

[B]

I am not an expert on this, but apparently Israel, in terms of its geopolitical position, like, where it physically exists. Right. It exists surrounded by, you know, a variety of Arab nations who have their own objectives and agenda as it relates to geopolitical engagement with the U.S. israel is a strategic.

[A]

Kind of, kind of, kind of. I mean, Turkey and Lebanon.

[B]

I mean. Correct, correct. But like Egypt and, you know, Syria and Jordan. Syria, yeah. Right.

[A]

But Syria's been like, they can't.

[B]

They.

[A]

They've been in a civil war till, like 10 minutes ago.

[B]

10 minutes ago. That's right. That's right. But, like, this is a strategic necessity for the US Interests. Is it really in the Middle East?

[A]

Is it really?

[B]

That's. That's.

[A]

That's the story.

[B]

That's the story. Right. And again, that's why I preface.

[A]

You don't believe that, like, you don't believe that the TikTok is about China. That's good. You don't believe this to be true.

[B]

Well, this is. This is.

[A]

This is the bedrock part of the story.

[B]

Well, this is a little different. Right. Because. So I believe that. Right, you do? Yeah. I believe it is a strategic necessity for us to support Israel.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I don't believe that it's beneficial for America to do so. I think. I don't think that's. I disagree. I believe that the people who do it believe that. I disagree that that's in the best interest of the U.S. okay.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I think it's all a part of U.S. hegemony, imperialism and white supremacy. It's a continuation.

[A]

Would it be. Would you be okay if Israel was just existing in this space and not oppressing the people of Palestine?

[B]

I think I would, yes.

[A]

Then you'd be like, yeah, like, if we have. Then you'd be okay. With giving them $3.5 billion.

[B]

I don't know if I'd be okay with that, but I'll be. Can we have a free Palestine? Can we not have apartheid?

[A]

Right.

[B]

Can we not have an occupation? Can we not have settlement expansion? Could we not have killing before this war, this conflict, just killing Palestinians randomly? Let's not do that. Just exist and be chilling, Right. And let the Palestinians be free and exist and chill. The 3.8 billion a year. Again, we can't really separate those two things because that's for their security. But what they've done with their security is they've used it to create apartheid.

[A]

It seems like Congress really struggles when there is a significant financial imbalance. Right. The Israel lobby has a lot of money and a lot of influence and there's a very small to non barely existent pro Palestinian lobby. Right. Just. We have the same. On the gun issue. Yeah, no, the gun and bullet lobby have a ton of money to play with. There's not that much money.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

In the gun control or gun safety area. Right? That's right. So. So then what we get is what the corporations want and not what the people keep telling us that they want.

[B]

And what the military industrial complex wants and et cetera.

[A]

So then, so on this issue, is that part of the problem that even though we can see there's a genocidal situation happening, like. Well, but they have all the money and they don't.

[B]

So I think so. Yes. But again, it has to be something deeper, which is where I go back to the unconscious, the things that are unconsciously motivating us to make the decisions. Right. The conscious thing is like they got more money, they got more power. We just got to fall in line. Listen to them. That's like the conscious thing, the unconscious thing is, you know, because when we talk about Israel, we have to talk about Zionism and we have to talk about like the Zionist movement to not just create the country, the nation of Israel, but the Christian Zionist movement here and what that means and the power structure that that represents. So that's all part of this as well. So this is about like again, Western imperial power.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Oppressing and murdering and genociding black and brown people.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

This is, you know, west, the west coming to the US and genociding the indigenous people here. Yes, this is the west and African enslavement. Yes, this is the west and the nakba and displacing 700,000 Palestinians and the ethnic cleansing there. This is the west and you know, Taking diamonds from Sierra Leone.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And this is the west doing what the west does. Israel's a part of that. And so that subconscious thing in the back of the minds of my colleagues in Congress, to me, is to uphold what that represents, that power structure, everybody black and brown, y'all stay where you are.

[A]

And you know, for a long time, there's been a lot of Jewish brothers and sisters in the Democratic Party. Donating, getting elected, being really. And I think that is part of why the Democratic Party would be pro Israel or not critical of Israel, because there's also a lot of Jewish people who we care about who are in our own movement.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You look at 2024 and you see thousands and thousands of Arab and Muslim people staying home in the blue wall states. And is that frightening to Democratic leaders? Is anyone saying, we need to evolve on this situation? Because that was a critical part of.

[B]

Why Kamala Joe lost the establishment Democratic leadership. No, I don't see that shift. I don't see that awareness. And it wasn't just Arab brothers and sisters who stayed home. It was young brothers and sisters who stayed home and a lot of Jewish brothers and sisters who stayed home. To your point, you know, like the black community, Jewish community is not a monolith. Many Jewish people are in support of Palestinian self determination.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Jewish peace. Many, many organs. Not in our name is what they scream. Right. And so no, young people who again, were concerned with the economy, were also concerned with Gaza. And yes, the Arab community, for sure. Many of them stay home. And it hurt us. And I don't see yet, maybe it's coming a shift from establishment Democrats. I mean, look at, look at, look at who the leadership has been over the last couple years. No disrespect, Biden's a little bit up there. Even Pelosi, who is gangster, is up there.

[A]

She's not the leader anymore.

[B]

She's not the leader anymore, but she's still. I mean, you remember when Biden was, when teetering and we were like, should he stay? Should he go?

[A]

She's the one.

[B]

She's the one who went out there and made it happen. Right.

[A]

So she's the real leader of the House.

[B]

No, no, Hakeem's the real leader, but.

[A]

The real, real leader because she has the relationship still.

[B]

Well, the relationships and the cachet. I mean, she's Nancy Pelosi.

[A]

Right. I mean, like, we love the brother. He's been on the show. He's my congressman. He could not have done what Nancy did. As far as edging Joe off the stage.

[B]

I think he could have, I think it would have been, I think it would have been. It might have caused other conflicts and ripples. Whereas Nancy could just do it and it's done.

[A]

Because she's not the House.

[B]

Well, because she's two time speaker, but.

[A]

She'S not speaker now, so that gives her more freedom to do something like that.

[B]

No, no, no, she's two time speaker.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So, you know, she's two time speaker, so she's, she's one of the most. Okay, probably the most respected and highly regarded member of Congress. Even though she's not speaker now, she'll need no title.

[A]

Right, right, right, right.

[B]

You know what I'm saying? She, she's, she's, she's like that.

[A]

So we have Dems taken any real learning from 2024 and said, okay, this is the way we should change.

[B]

Yeah. So, yes, I'm not as plugged in because I'm not there anymore. So I'm not in the caucus constantly. But I have had some conversations and the short answer is yes, but I don't know. Do we have the people in place who know how to do what needs to be done to get us in position to win in 2026 and then 2028? I don't know if the answer to that is yes. So it's good to hear you had Hakeem on the show and that's not surprising to me. You know, I need Hakeem to be on every show. I need Hakeem to be, I need him to be the guy and I need others like him to just be everywhere. Like Hakeem. Of course, the squad, I'm biased, but the squad, like again, I don't wanna be ageist, but for example, Senator Padilla from California, Latino brother, right. I think he's Mexican. I saw him on MSNBC and I never to the point of senators, right? Like where they at? Like why they ain't talking? I saw him on MSNBC in an interview. He was excellent. Not only was he excellent, he had like the Spanish accent vibe Riz to him. And I'm like, yo, America need to see you, man.

[A]

But it's more than personality.

[B]

But that matters.

[A]

But we got crushed. I'm glad you said yes, but a lot of demographics went for Trump or increased their vote. They're going toward the right. Do you know what some of the things that Dems want to do differently for 2028 or at least 2026?

[B]

I don't as of yet. I know what some want to do Differently. Some want to lean right into where we've been weak at and do more work in those communities, which is good. One of the things that's challenging, man, it's. And again, I was only there two terms, so maybe that's why I didn't really understand this that well. But we're like. It's like Game of Thrones. We're all independent contractors. Like, we're all. We all have our fiefdoms. So we all, in a sense, kind of do our own thing, which is. Which has to be that way. Cause we represent our districts. But if we're gonna collectively meet the needs of the people and build power with the people, we have to do it collectively. And so I. Maybe that's coming and I gotta have more conversations, but I don't see that yet. Donald Trump was leading on every news station for. Has been for 10 years. Nine. 10 years. Right. And the Republican Party has been lockstep with him. For a while. They were going after him, but then he won. And then they've been lockstep with him. So it's been one voice. Why did he win the first time or the second time? This time, 2024, the people we need to come out and vote stayed home. He had a perceived perception, again, better economic message. And not just him. Voters tend to think Republicans are better on the economy, and it's because they're always talking about the deficit. And again, they're great at this. That's a kitchen table issue. Like people in their homes. When you hear debt or deficit, you know, you're balancing the books, trying to figure it out. It's genius. They always talk about that, so they seem better for the economy. So. And we. And to quote, you know, I told Hakeem I loved when he said this, quote. So I'm sure he wouldn't mind me sharing it. Hakeem said one thing in a meeting that I think was very powerful. He said Democrats speak in fine print and Republicans speak in headlines. And he wasn't saying it as a compliment to us. And we're intellectual, ivory tower. We have the moral argument we're right. Nobody got time for that. If you say too many words, I'm tuning you out.

[A]

Well, even when you talk about thinking and perception, quite often Republicans will throw out something and people will perceive that to be right because it feels right on a gut level. And then lefties or Dems come behind, like. Well, actually, if you go to the social science that you see, and if.

[B]

You look at the research by, you know, the Peer reviewed study that was.

[A]

Done about what is real. And she's talking about, yeah, but I feel scared. You tell me that the town is safer, but I feel scared. So I like him. Cause he tough. Like, wow, okay. But that's fucking real.

[B]

You gotta. Again, it's emotional connection. Yep, absolutely.

[A]

So he won because the people we.

[B]

Need to vote stayed home, they had a better economic message, and we sucked on Gaza. I'll say those three reasons. But let me, but let me take a quick step back and say this quickly. In my opinion, after 2022, Biden should have said, I'm not running. Let's do an open primary. Whoever wins that, that's the candidate you.

[A]

Still would run into. The challenge of. You look like you skipped over the black woman.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And that demographic, which is the core of the Democratic Party, the most loyal voters of all of them would have been at that point, they would have been like, what the fuck? How come she's next?

[B]

Yeah, so that's a good point. So let's say 2022, he decides I'm not running and I endorse Kamala Harris and then get others to endorse it too.

[A]

Which we did. And they correctly used.

[B]

I was 10 weeks out, it was late.

[A]

No, no, I know. But just the fact of Joe saying I anoint her became this cudgel of, where's the democracy?

[B]

Where's the democracy?

[A]

And I'm like, you're not even a Democrat. Why do you care how we chose our candidate? And they're like, y'all don't look as though it was a coup. What's going on? It's not very democratic over there.

[B]

Like, okay, I think we needed more time and the two years would have gave us more time than the 10 weeks or whatever it was. And I think. And I also wish she would have done more to just be her own candidate. Right. Like she was loyal to him. And you know, everyone is citing the, the View answer she gave on the View. I wouldn't change anything. Right. And so that kind of thing. Yeah, man. It wasn't enough time to really run a campaign. And again, she needed to separate herself a little bit. But yeah, all of those factors.

[A]

But even still, she became a semi incumbent. So if something had been done by the administration that was her fault, but then also if it was good, she doesn't get credit for it, cuz she's not really the incumbent. But if she says we should do X, it's like, well, why haven't you done it already? Well, I'm the vice president. Well, what have you done as vice president?

[B]

The vice president doesn't do shit.

[A]

Well, then why are we electing you?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, good stuff. You sound like Lord Jabar, son. I debated Lord Jamar. So I'm like, yo, you bugged out, man. How'd you get like this? But, yeah, man. I mean, listen, one of the first things I shared on social media was, listen, man, we still racist as hell and we still sexist as hell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the sexism thing, I mean, damn, son. Like, these white women, yo.

[A]

Well, you know what? It's. It's perhaps our fault for. For thinking that they would relate first on a female basis. They related primarily on a racial basis. You know, that was the connection they saw. And it was us who thought, like, oh, women will vote for a woman. And like, when that ever happens, like, what do you know?

[B]

That's mad foul, though, son. I mean, it's just like. It's just. I think of my district too, right? And again, like, you know, so 2020, I won. It was a majority black district. Redistricting happened because of the Census. They took 200,000 Black people out of my district. Crazy.

[A]

The 2020, because we had. Who did that? Was that a Republican?

[B]

Democrat. That was so. Yeah. So Democrats, we voted into law a map. Republicans challenged it at every level of the court. The courts accepted. The Republicans challenge. It went to a special master who don't know nothing about nothing, and he drew these maps that took 200,000 black people away. And it was so dirty the way it happened.

[A]

The special master didn't know he.

[B]

Well, the special master was someone from, like, upstate New York who don't really know the city and dynamics of how it works. That person drew it. I mean, I know that became the map.

[A]

In some places, they are specifically drawing weirdo maps so that a Republican's gonna win this.

[B]

Correct. That's not New York State. New York State has laws against that.

[A]

Okay, good.

[B]

But they were able to draw my district and other districts where they took large swaths of people of color out, which is what they did to me. It was so egregious that Democrats sued the next cycle to get the maps redrawn. And they freaking kept the maps pretty much as they were. But again, a bunch of political stuff. Related. Anyway, I make that point because 2022, I won with the new crazy maps. 2024, they had a better candidate and all the money in the world and a genocide, and I was on the side of the Palestinians. If you want to Put it that way. And mad white women in Westchester who like, supported me in 2022, 2020, I was like, ah, we gonna support the 71 year old white man. It was crazy.

[A]

I am told that before we were around that there was more collegiality in that Dems and Republicans would be friends or at least friendly. And I don't believe that the problem is a lack of friendship. But I am told that there is virtually no sort of social connection across the aisle and that Dems just tend to just not really even know Republicans and vice versa. Like, is that true?

[B]

Oh, we know them, they know us.

[A]

I mean, by name. But you don't really know each other.

[B]

No. Like there's, I mean, it's, you know, Jim Crow south, right? Dems on one side, Republicans on the other. And every now and then one of them will come over to us and try to talk to us. Every now and then we'll go over there and talk to them. But. And again, I can only judge from, you know, how I came in. Right. Which was, I mean, you know, George Floyd was just killed, Covid Trump and all his nonsense. QAnon Maga. Right. So that was, that was, it was like, you know, y'all over there, we over here. Right?

[A]

That's in the chamber.

[B]

That's in the chamber.

[A]

Is that true? Like, is there like a lunch room or a dining hall where there's also that segregation? Does that persist in all shared spaces?

[B]

Good question. Yes. So. So there's a. I mean, most of us don't go to the dining hall ever. We'll go either some posh spot off campus to raise money at the same time that we're eating.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I mean, there's a Democratic club, there's a Republican club. Right. Like, we have separate spaces. And again, I'm sure there are and maybe were before the bag of stuff times where all that we would have a beer together stuff was happening to your point. And my point is if we not like dealing with the original sin and sickness of America, which is white supremacy, no matter if you have a beer together. Right. We need to help poor people and marginalized people. And so we're not doing that. What are we doing? But yeah, I would presume that the MAGA stuff just made it so like it's very, very divided. And then again, not to keep going back to this issue after October 7th, you saw some division in the Democratic Party as well.

[A]

For sure. Did you interact with Marjorie Taylor Greene?

[B]

Once or twice. Once or twice. She's a. She's interesting, man. She, she's interesting all of them, man. Byron, Donald, the other brother. They're wild, yo. It's very interesting.

[A]

I mean, you know, Matt Gaetz, some.

[B]

Of them were, yeah, Matt Gates made me feel uncomfortable, you know, Like, I, I, I don't even like standing there, dude. Right. And what was crazy is we had like a similar bill where we were trying to like bring back war time or war decision powers to Congress from the President because the president got all this power that he got since 9, 11 that we're trying to like. Yo, the president's not supposed to have to power. Congress should. And we should debate and vote on. Should we have troops in Syria? It was Syria specifically, we had a similar bill. So he would, like, come up to me and try and talk to me about partnering on this bill. I'm like, yo, like mad uncomfortable. I was probably most uncomfortable around him than anybody. Really? Yeah. Especially when it came out that he was like, possibly sexually trafficking, like, teenage girl. I'm like, yo, get away from me, son. And he looks like Quagmire from Family Guy. Like, that was the other shit. I'm like, yo, get this guy out of here, son.

[A]

Though Matt was the worst for me.

[B]

Like, it just made, like, my skin. I mean, Marjorie's up there too, but she's like, you know, I'm not.

[A]

You wonder, like, is she doing an act? And when she has like an off camera moment with a Jamal Bowman, you can have an actual conversation with her.

[B]

You remember what happened with me and her? Like, this is a public thing.

[A]

I remind me.

[B]

And it's AOC's fault too, by the way. Okay, so we were coming, me and Alex, me and AOC were coming out of voting. We just finished voting. And Jorge Santos, you remember him?

[A]

Yes, for sure.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

New York's finest.

[B]

Yes. He was being interviewed by, by a, by a gaggle, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So Alex is like, yo, let's, let's, let's heckle George Santos, right? So we start heckling him and just messing with him and, you know, calling him names, like, heckling, like friendly banter. And then I turn and we see Marjorie Taylor Greene. And I could tell she wanted to engage, right? So I'm like, yo, Marjorie, get your boy Jorge Santos. Like, what's going on with him? Da, da, da. So I'm heckling her and then it leads to some friend. What I thought was like friendly banter back and forth. You know, she's going at Biden, I'm going at Trump. She's saying things about the border. I'm talking about protecting children, friendly banter. The next morning, first thing in the morning, she get, holds a press conference to tell America how dangerous I am and how scared she is of me right now. We both know the history of this shit. So I, I go to vote the next day, the same day, excuse me, I, I happen to see the video, I'm like, what the hell is this? I go to vote. And I think it was CNN puts a camera in my face and asked me to respond to her framing of me, but not no to what she said about me. While ignoring the framing. Like they didn't capture the historical significance of this blond haired, blue eyed, white woman built saying that this black man is scary to her. They didn't even know, acknowledge it.

[A]

No, no.

[B]

So, so, and I'm in touch with my comms team this whole time I'm like, yo, this is crazy that they came to me with this question. They didn't even bring it up. So after I vote, I went back outside and I called the gaggle. Like I called the reporters over and just made it really clear to them how dangerous it was based on what she said. She said the same thing that the officer said before they killed Mike Brown. And there's hundreds, thousands of examples of this across American history, right? So, yeah, that one interaction led to her, I'm the victim, white lady, and this big black man is scary. And we have to watch out for Jamal Bowman. So yeah, I stayed away from Marjorie Taylor Greene after that. Man, Shorty, crazy man. That place is wild, son.

[A]

That is fucking wild. Lawrence O'Donnell said something to me that helped me understand the whole thing. Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He was like, you know, these guys, elected officials, it's like they play a game. He said, imagine if they played a game and media didn't get to see them play the game. We only get to see them come out after the game and say this is what happened. And he was saying that to say the speeches and the media interviews, that's not really, really the thing. And the speeches on the floor, not really the thing. It's what happens in the back rooms and how certain people are able to talk to other people and convince them to come along or are unable to get them to come along with their bill. And that's what defines a great legislator, a great congressman or senator or president or not. And we never get to see the person in that guise of the LBJ buttonholing somebody, you gotta vote for me or whatever, whoever was smart enough to stick TikTok the TikTok ban in an omnibus bill, which had a bunch of shit that you had to vote for.

[B]

That was very smart, which happens all the time. Right. We call those poison pills.

[A]

Yes, but I mean, that was an intelligent way of manipulating people and doing what that member wanted them to do. So that ability to manipulate other people, which we generally don't ever see, that is the defining factor.

[B]

Absolutely. And I would change manipulate to persuade or encourage. But Lawrence is right. He's absolutely right. It's how the sausage is made. A great legislator, first of all, takes the job very seriously at all times and is constantly engaging all of their colleagues on pieces of legislation to try to get them to move in a particular direction. That's what great legislators do. And those conversations, man, are. I've been a part of a few of them. They're rich, they're powerful, and they're transformative, even if the person you're trying to persuade says no. And so that. I wish there was more of that, but I felt like during my four years during the Trump era, it was much more the theater stuff and the. Not just the theater stuff, but the. It was much more. Who can win the cold war of communication? It's like a communication cold war. Who can win that versus. Okay, let's really buckle down and try to do this legislation now. My first term, you know, the. The infrastructure bill, the inflation Reduction Act, Safer Communities act, the Chips and Size act, there were some bills that were. Ended up being bipartisan where, you know, people had to get in a room and figure it out. That was my first term with Democrats in control. When Republicans got back control, it just became all about narratives. We gotta push the right narrative so that we could win in 2024. And that's what they did.

[A]

Who is a great legislator?

[B]

Ayanna Presley.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Jamie Raskin. Again, I'm biased. Right. So I love the squad. So I'm gonna say all of them.

[A]

But some of the folks that. Who we love have not gotten significant legislation passed. A great legislator gets shit done.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Which is not to say if you don't get shit done, you're bad.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

It is very hard to get shit done. But if you can get something done, you are great.

[B]

Yes, 100%. But those three. So, Jamie, Ayanna, again, squad, as a group, I would put them all in that category. Ayanna came to mind first.

[A]

I thought you were gonna say Nancy Pelosi.

[B]

Nancy. She's just gangsta, yo. Like, again, I saw her during her second speakership, where. When you're the speaker, you're not a legislator. You are a legislator, but you're a godfather, you're a boss, you're a don. Like you make things go. You're an architect, right? You're. You're a designer, you're the principal. Like you're the, you're the, you run the show. Right? So it's much less legislation. It's different. Yeah. But I say Ayanna. Ayanna has this phrase. Legislation is her love language, you know, and she really believes and champions legislation as the path towards like justice and equity. And she's led incredible legislation. Women's reproductive rights, criminal justice reform, many other areas. To your point. And she has many pieces of her legislation became law, but many haven't. But that's the other part of it. Legislation is also designed to shift the consciousness of the country. So it is a communication tool. And she does that very, very well. I co wrote part of the Chips and Science Act. I have many amendments in that bill to make sure equity was put into that bill. That was like the first time I was a part of.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

What is it called? Coordinating conference. So what happens is when it's a bipartisan piece of legislation in the House and bipartisan, bicameral, that will become law, you come together in conference to discuss it. Many times your staff is there discussing amongst themselves as well, like leading legislators. That was my first time being a part of something like that. And they just, you know, you say your piece about the bill, that was real empowering, man. That was my chance to like be in a place where the. Where the sausage was made. The second time that I had a piece of legislation that was my own. It's a resolution condemning the Great Replacement Theory. So this was shortly after the Buffalo mass shooting. Mass shooting where the shooter targeted black people in Buffalo. In the poorest section of Buffalo.

[A]

Grocery store.

[B]

Yeah, that was after that happened. It was the first time, like I dropped my kids off to school and wept outside the school. Cause I was like, damn, yo. Like someone could just run up in the school. And you know what I'm saying? Cause this wasn't a school shooting, but school shootings were happening too. And my kids happened to be black. And so you.

[A]

Grocery store.

[B]

Yeah, at a grocery store.

[A]

It could be.

[B]

It could be anywhere.

[A]

It could be there.

[B]

It could be 100%, man. It was the first time I did that. But that we took the mantle on condemning the Great Replacement Theory. Cause that person in their manifesto cited the Great Replacement Theory as part of their motivation. And that was A time when my office was working the phones and my chief. Salute to my chief, Sarah Guermain, working the phones, working leadership. We gotta get this done. We gotta do it now. This is a MAG initiative, and we passed that resolution.

[A]

What do great legislators or effective legislators, like, what are they saying in these meetings, in these moments that are getting people to yes?

[B]

Yeah. Well, we are, first of all making the argument as to why this legislation is important not just for our districts, but for the country. Right. Regarding the great replacement theory, we didn't want it to become commonplace, and we didn't want the normalization of this theory to proliferate throughout the American people because. Because we would have more mass shootings, theoretically, targeting people of color. But the other part of it is, what are your concerns as it relates to this bill? How can you get to yes? Or how can I get you to yes is a phrase that is often used. And then someone who's willing to have a conversation and play ball will explain what can get them to yes. And then often you reconvene with your team, and then you come back and have the conversation. And the other thing I want to say is a lot of this, oftentimes it's our staff. So it's my chief of staff, my legislative director talking to their legislative director, my chief talking to their chief. And then in the ninth inning or the fourth quarter, hey, we need you to pick up a phone and call the member.

[A]

Getting you to yes or getting them to yes. Sometimes it's about changes on this bill. Sometimes it's about, can you be there down the line? Yeah. Can you be there for me on this other thing?

[B]

Yes, it is. Sometimes it's changes on that bill. Sometimes it's down the line.

[A]

Are there other things that I can do to get you to yes?

[B]

Probably. I haven't had those conversations personally, but I want to give you an example of something that, like, I was never gonna. So two things. After January 6th and during this time, everyone was out to prove that we still support police. This was like, you know, George Floyd happened. Defund the police was common language. So we had to pass legislation to show that we love the police. Right. There was a bill that was going to add X hundreds of millions of dollars to the Capitol Police budget. They weren't even asking for the money. It was basically reparations for kind of what they just went through. And many of them were killed and died. So I understand. We were pushing to make sure that congressional and Capitol staff also received hazard pay.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

As part of this Bill. So the initial bill didn't have hazard pay. We pushed for it to include hazard pay. So basically, if you include hazard pay here, you could get me to a yes.

[A]

Okay, Right.

[B]

I don't even remember if they included it. I think there was some pushback anyway for this bill. I never got to a yes, but I got to a present, which is interesting. So, okay, I'm not gonna vote no, right? I'm not gonna vote yes. I'm gonna vote present, which means you actually need now one less yes to get the bill across the finish line. Man, I voted present on this bill, and I felt like crap. After voting president, I just felt like a chump. Like, I felt like I didn't take a stand. I didn't make a firm decision. And so I said to myself, I'll never vote president again. Fast forward to 2022. There's another bill that's like an omnibus public safety bill that has all kind of money going to police, but it also had other bills in there that were more like root cause of public safety. Bills were good, but not far enough. Not only was I a no on the bill, I was a no on the rule. And so for the audience out there, before we vote on a bill, we vote on a rule that governs debate for the bill. And so when you're a no on the rule, if you have enough nos, the rule doesn't move forward, the bill doesn't move forward. And so me and enough people were no on the rule that we caused a shitstorm in Congress this particular day. We had colleagues coming to our office who had bills in this omnibus pleading with us to. Jamal, just vote yes on the rule and no on the bill. You don't like the bill, vote yes. But we knew the bill had the votes to pass, so we weren't gonna vote yes on the rule. And I swear, like, my phone was blowing up. Text messages, calls. People come to my office. And what made this worse, Pelosi was speaker. And remember, Pelosi is. She's Don Corleone. You know, she's Tony Soprano. Like, you can't mess with Pelosi's rule. And Pelosi doesn't bring anything to the.

[A]

Floor that doesn't pass that she doesn't know is gonna pass that she doesn't.

[B]

Know is gonna pass.

[A]

Right, right, right, right.

[B]

But we. We stood our ground, man.

[A]

Did she call you?

[B]

I think she did. She did call me, yes.

[A]

But you didn't answer the phone.

[B]

I was. I wasn't answering my phone at this time. I was, like, ignoring everything.

[A]

Hiding.

[B]

I was hiding, yes, but that's why people had to come to the office.

[A]

Hiding from the dawn.

[B]

Hiding from the dawn, man. But I wasn't like. I'm like, come on, man. That year, it was like every other week we were voting to send money to Israel or the police. And I'm like, what are we doing?

[A]

Seriously?

[B]

We can't send no money to black people, son. Like, what are we doing?

[A]

You were in office when the Republicans needed, like, seven or eight ballots. Was it to pick a new speaker?

[B]

Thirteen.

[A]

Thirteen. It was like a long, long night of trying to figure it out. And then they couldn't.

[B]

And they couldn't. That was the beginning of my second term. McCarthy.

[A]

Yes. Tell me about that experience. Cause that was. That had to be one of the wildest things that you went through.

[B]

Super wild, but, like, mad frustrating, though. Like, another example of, like, what are we doing here? Are we. Are we governing or not? Right? And again, in the House, that's what I'm saying. It becomes like, theaters. Like, what are we doing? Like, it's a show. Like, I remember posting a video from the cloak room, like, off the House floor, there's a cloak room. And they have these phone booths where you just sit and, like, handle your business. I'm in the cloak room. I made a TikTok, eating popcorn. That shit got millions of views. Cause people were just entertained by the whole thing. 13 votes at 1 point. Republicans about to get on a fight in a fight on the House floor. It was crazy.

[A]

Was it Donald's who was about to get in the fight?

[B]

No, no, it wasn't. Donald's was Gaetz. I don't think it was Gates, but they were part of the Freedom Caucus that were the most conservative, the most radical, the most radical right. So, no, they were holding it up, you know, and Gates was one of the people said he would Never vote for McCarthy. And I don't know if he ever did. But no, the second. Once McCarthy was ousted, McCarthy pretty much was a dead man walking because he had to agree that all it would take is one Republican to call for a recall vote. Right, to remove him. So his whole time as speaker, it's impossible. It's impossible he was governing with a gun to his head.

[A]

Especially with this. You call it Freedom Caucus. We used to call him Suicide Caucus. Yeah, yeah, I'll do. I'll say Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert. Lauren Boebert, the far maga who's like the QAnon.

[B]

Nothing on the Right. Who.

[A]

Who are also critical of government itself. So they're like, McCarthy, fuck you, you're too lefty for us. Like, I'm Republican. Like, I don't care. I hate you too.

[B]

No, we're burning this whole thing down like straight.

[A]

Straight government is the problem.

[B]

Yep. But Johnson took Mike Johnson or Mike Johnson's. Once they ousted McCarthy, it took him like six or seven. Yeah, yeah. Cause they were nominating other people like Donalds and others. But yeah, man.

[A]

What was the wildest thing you experienced in this four years in terms of being.

[B]

It's hard to say in Congress. Hard to not say. January 6th. Right. Even though I wasn't in the chamber. That was wild. That was wild. The wildest thing there was probably Mad Wild Things. January 6th. First thing that comes to mind. The second thing is when we voted no on the infrastructure bill because at the last minute they took away Build Back Better, which had all the good stuff in it. Affordable housing, childcare, pre K paid leave, making the child tax credit permanent, lifted 50% of children out of poverty. They took that away last minute and forced us to vote on this infrastructure bill where 97% of the $1.3 trillion go to white men. Crazy. That whole. We can do a whole nother show on just that whole arc of how that happened. But that was a. That, that period of time for me personally was crazy because right after that bill, that vote, we were leading every news station in the country. And I flew to Israel the next day and so. And then I spent the next. I want to say 10 days, but I don't think it was 10 days. I think it was five days in Israel messaging back home, why we voted no on the bill while going to Yad Vashem and the West Bank. And that was, that was. For me personally, that was the wildest time because it was just, you know, what's the term? It's trauma, but that's not the term. You know, when you do. When like a. Yeah, it is trauma. Like there was like subsequent. There was like consecutive hugely traumatic events that took place within a concentrated period of time. So, you know, and you know, a lot of people pop off on social media and all of that when we take these votes. Man, these votes are hard, yo. Right. Like, especially when you take a vote when you really trying to stand up for your people. And you're one of the few. Like on that bill, that infrastructure bill, we were the only six people who didn't vote for it. And so we got vilified for this because people Are like, oh, you're against it? We're not against infrastructure. We just know that we ain't got no childcare. We need child care.

[A]

This is where you run into the problem of perception that the conversation of the reason of why you didn't vote for it is complicated.

[B]

Yeah, very. Yes.

[A]

But it's very easy to say, he voted against infrastructure. He doesn't care about your rules.

[B]

He doesn't care about infrastructure.

[A]

No, I didn't vote for it because it wasn't lefty and helpful enough. But you're attacking me from the 100%.

[B]

And many in the media, especially local, are lazy, so they'll report how it's reported, right? And, you know, that's kind of how it works. But those votes are hard, right? And so when we. When we. Like Barbara Lee, the godmother, Barbara Lee, she was the only vote against the Iraq war after 9, 11.

[A]

That was really hard.

[B]

I can't even imagine. I'm getting goosebumps talking about it, like, the only vote. You know how hard that is, man?

[A]

Very hard. It was hard to just in public say that you were against the invasion. That was that you would get attacked. That's right in the middle of the street.

[B]

Colin Powell. I mean, I remember that time there was no black man of larger stature.

[A]

In my consciousness, no man of any race.

[B]

That's right. That's right.

[A]

He's like, colby, this is our Nelson Mandela. If he says it is true.

[B]

That's right. Initially, he was like, nah, they ain't got no weapons. And then a couple of weeks later, he was like, you know what? I think they might have weapons. I'm like, how y'all get. Colin Powell. That's what that time was. And Barbara Lee said, no, only vote. And we were one of six. Those votes are hard, man. And so, like, you know, again, you know, Twitter fingers turn the trigger fingers, right? You can say whatever you want on Twitter, but to be in those rooms.

[A]

When you say it's hard, do you mean, like, other congresspeople are like, what the fuck?

[B]

Nah, it's not even that. I mean. Yes, that's part of it. Yes. Like I said, you know, that police bill, there were other congresspeople who were like, on me. So that made it hard.

[A]

It's who. Who is voicing the thing that makes it be like, this was hard to do?

[B]

Well, all of the above. And, like, it's like. It's like. It sounds kind of corny or cheesy, but it's like taking a stand. Like, taking a stand. For something in front of others is hard. Like, that's like, I'm not. Again, I'm not against this thing, but we are for this stuff that you just took away for no reason other than to exercise your power, which made it worse. And so it was. It's hard to like in that moment when everybody's watching to be like, I'm gonna do this right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And then what even makes. Then on top of that, the phone calls into the office don't stop. So once we take a vote like that, my staff can't do their jobs because the phone calls, the emails, the constant. Why did he do that? What was he thinking? What's going on? We support the President. We support infrastructure. My staff. And this is like we should all show love to every congressional staff because they get it.

[A]

But you're saying they are unable to work because your district is calling you.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no. It's not my district. It's the country. There's not just district calling.

[A]

But do you care if somebody in New Jersey or Florida calls, says, you should have done X?

[B]

It's one thing to say no, no is a short answer. Was one thing to say you don't care. It's another thing to deal with it. Right. You still got to deal with it. Like the phone is still ringing. We can't turn off the phones because we got to respond to our district. And so, you know, I co sponsored a bill and I hate to keep going back to this my co sponsored a bill that told Israel we need to know what you're doing with our money. We want to make sure you're not using our money to detain children unjustly. I co sponsored a bill. It was not going to get marked up in committee. It was not going to get a vote. We got 1,000 letters to the office of protest outside the office and calls so innumerous that we couldn't even function right.

[A]

You can't ignore this because you can't do your basic job because there's so.

[B]

Much incoming, incoming, incoming income.

[A]

So you have to address it.

[B]

So you have to address it. That means. So. So the actual moments where you're taking a stand is hard. The incoming to your office is hard. And then, then the media part is hard. Then when you're walking through the community and people are asking you about it. I had to talk about that infrastructure vote for two years.

[A]

It's not the other elected officials.

[B]

It's no, it's way less that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, but again, we sign up for that. So we get it. Right. But part of my frustration was always, I don't know, like, what's our purpose here? Like, what are we doing here?

[A]

So when, you know, this is what happens when you take a difficult vote, that all this crush comes at you. I might be talking about this. So does that then make you or not you somebody else afraid to vote a certain way? Cuz they're like, I wanna vote yes, but I can't deal with this for two years.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I can't speak for other people. For me, I developed like an emotional callous. I felt battle tested. So it was easier the more we did it. Right. That's why coverage is such a powerful thing. It's like, when you do it, it's like, oh, shit, I'm still ticking. Like, I could do it again, probably, right? But no, I felt my second term, when we took a hard vote, it was just like. It was what it was. It was just like, okay, this is easy.

[A]

It gets easier to take easy, hard votes.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it got easier. Now again, you're speaking to someone who lost his, his last congressional race, right? So you take that for what you will, but I mean, for me, man, you know, what do they say? Stand on business, right? So, like, if we're not there with the right values and for the right reasons and we're not standing on business, what are we doing here? Like, I'm not trying to be here. Like, Rosa delaura, who I love, ranking member of the Appropriations Committee. She been trying, she'd been fighting for 10 years to end child poverty in America. This is what, like, we could give bill, we got money for wars, but can't feed the poor, right? Like, what is that? Like, how is that in America's best interest? How does that help our national security? How does that help us beat China? How does that help our GDP and our deficit if we're allowing 50%, like, like one in four children to go to bed hungry? And she's been there 10 years doing, trying to do this. And she had. Did it for one year, you know, during COVID She was able to get her bill into, you know, into one of the, into the, the American rescue plan and lifted 50% of children out of poverty. And you know what people do when you give them money? They pay their bills and they put food on the table, they don't go get high. You know what I'm saying? Like, they take care of their families. Shocking. Yeah. It's crazy.

[A]

Thanks so much to Congressman Jamaal Bowman for a great interview and thanks to you for listening. Torre's show gives you fuel to power your dreams because you can use your dreams like a rocket ship to blast you into a life you never imagined. You can make your dreams a reality. Maybe this show can help. Can find me on Instagram, orayshow, on TikTok orayshow and also on Redbook Torre shows written by me Torre and produced by Ashley Hobbs. Our editor is Ryan Woodhull. Our booker is Ray Holiday and were distributed by DCP Entertainment and we will be back next Wednesday with more amazing guests because the man can't shut us down.