Congressional candidate Elizabeth Lee is a nationally recognized nurse, board-certified patient advocate, and reproductive healthcare policy expert with over a decade of experience advancing access to care. She built a career helping thousands of patients navigate complex medical, financial, and ethical barriers—while also advising lawmakers on federal IVF and reproductive health protections. @NurseLee4AZ
Today’s conversation covers Right to Dissent regulations that prevent the boycotting of the Israeli government, the ever-looming threat of Turning Point USA-backed candidates outspending Democrats in local and national elections, and where Democrats are failing to meet the calls of their constituents.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome back to the Civic Cipher Studios. Still
in the saddle here with your host, Rams's Jah and
we are joined by congressional candidate Elizabeth Lee, who is
a nationally recognized nurse Board certified patient advocate and reproductive
healthcare policy expert with over a decade of experience advancing
access to care. She built a career helping thousands of
patients navigate complex medical, financial, and ethical barriers, while also
(00:22):
advising lawmakers on federal IBF and reproductive health protections. You
can find her online at Nurse Lee or a Z
That time I got it with less marbles.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
So let's talk about your campaign. Yes, you mentioned that
you did not take money from APAC. A lot of
people at present would think of that as being a
good thing. Yes, which is lialth Hey, it's what it is.
(00:53):
But now let's talk about turning Point USA. Last time
you're on the show, yep, you mentioned that turning Point
USA was a concer that you had to bear in
mind for your campaign. Now that would have been a
sort of step two. Step one is turns out democrats.
So talk about you know the concerns that you have
(01:16):
on your campaign, and indeed for other campaigns that might
be taking place around the country, because I think the
Democratic Party is having a reckoning with their allegiance to APEC,
some of the decisions they've made in the past, some
of their complacency with their constituents. They took a lot
(01:39):
of things for granted for a long time. So again,
you're a person that's actually in the saddle, and you
may I think you do inspire many other people to
do more than what they're doing. Again, talk about the
concerns you have turning Point USA Democratic inviting people, you know,
things that people wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, I guess I'll start by saying that, Yeah, the
turning Point issue is definitely a forefront concern. With that said,
I'll say the concern is less than it was when
I was last on your show with the SRP candidates,
because that was an election that they played very heavily in.
They invested a lot of their time, money and canvassers
(02:21):
into that.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Election, invested a lot of their time. That's right.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So a religious organization invested millions of dollars in these campaigns.
So I mean, I think everyone listening should ask themselves
why that is.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Why would a religious organization that's politically aligned want to
control the utility company?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Right just but you know, in any case, and what
is heartening about all of that is that they really
didn't win because the clean energy team won the majority.
That was a loss to turning point, which is a
good good sign for it's a good sign. It could
have been way worse because had they taken the whole board.
I think that those of us who were facing challengers
(03:08):
that will have TPUSA money, we're starting to go, oh my,
that's going to like be going off the deep end.
But the good news is that for right now, they
were not able to make their organizing machine turn out
the results that they wanted. With that said, my eventual
Republican opponent, Mark Lamb has MAGA money, TPUSA money. He
(03:31):
has money from every which way that you could imagine.
And a great example of why this is problematic when
I am running a grassroots campaign, I've taken money from
over twenty two hundred individual contributors, and all of that
has been small dollar donations. I get messages on dms
on socials that say, hey, there's a giant Mark Lamb
(03:53):
sign out here at the corner of blank and blank.
You might want to get some signs up, and I'm like,
you might want to donate one hundred dollars for that
sign friend. So that's something that's it's worrisome because I
can do a lot with a little. I was born
and raised in a family we had very little, so
I knew how to do a lot with a little
from a very young age.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
But you can't.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I don't know if you can win a congressional election,
if you can run a win a congressional campaign without
some money. I mean, it's just kind of it is
what it is. And what's frustrating about it is that
because it's a primary, a lot of folks are reticent
to participate in primaries, specifically to fund primaries, and yet
turning point is funding primaries all over the place. So unfortunately,
(04:35):
I think you have probably you understand this as well
as anybody.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That it's like the double standard.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
You don't want us to take this money, but you
don't want to give us your money either. It's a
tough line of walk, but at the end of the day,
people power when we organize, we know people power is
what wins. And so even under the threat of Mark
Lamb having effectively what's going to feel like unlimited money.
We have to be very strategic and not do this
(05:09):
whole campaigning thing like we've always done it. We cannot
nominate somebody to go up against Mark Lamb that is
not going to have the backbone to stand up to
him in the general election.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
We just can't.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And if the Democratic Party wants to start redeeming itself
a bit in terms of messaging and in terms of
what it supports, you know, getting behind these grassroots candidates,
especially ones that are on the progressive side of things,
it's what the people are asking for all across the country.
The people are asking for progressive candidates who are going
(05:45):
to be bold, who are not going to be the
strongly awarded letter gentlemen's agreements group.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Okay, so have you encountered that type of Democrat or
maybe have you encountered maybe some sort of opposition from
Democrats toward your I guess more progressive ideas or maybe
(06:12):
you in general. Has that been something he bumped up against?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
You know, I'll say that my own apprehension about leaning
into my progressive values was probably more than anyone else's
opinion on it, only because I really want to give
the people of CD five an amazing representative, and I
don't want to do anything that jeopardizes that, you know
what I mean. But you know, I think we're going
(06:41):
to have to break out of these mindsets that we have,
these like strongly held constructs about how things should go.
And I'm going to be vulnerable for a second, but
I think it's really important in my race. In the
process of verifying all of our ballot petition signatures, it
came to our attention that one of our editors did
not have enough signatures, and we did what I think
(07:04):
any good human should do and was just like let
him know and said, hey, you know, here's the receipts.
You don't have enough. You really audit your op out.
That's just the right thing to do. There's a law
that says this many saving strits, you don't have them,
you don't get on the ballot.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
This is very simple.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And Ramsey's the amount of people who were so angry
at me for holding his feet to the fire on
that really blew my mind because so many people said
that's we don't do that to each other. The Democrats
don't do that to each other. We don't challenge each other.
What do you mean if we can't hold our candidates
(07:36):
to the very bare minimum standard that is required, who
would I be after spending the last nine months telling
people all across my district and all across this country
who supported me, that I am going to stand for accountability.
I am going to hold people responsible even when it's hard.
I believe my path to victory in this race is
(07:59):
standing in the truth.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Thank you. I want to add something here and again,
I'm going to do this on behalf of Q. I
think you would appreciate it. When you have a commitment
to the truth, it is a tough commitment to honor
(08:22):
if you are also trying to do right by people.
Believe it or not, Yes, because the truth it's almost
like that that's saying from that movie you can't handle
the truth sometimes, but and the same breath, I can say,
the truth will set you free. And something I've said
on a recent episode is the truth does not care
about your feelings about it. It will stay. Now Here's
(08:46):
why I like what you said. When Kamala Harris was
running against Donald Trump, there were a group of people,
I think progressive minded people who said to themselves. Kamala
(09:07):
Harris is not everything that we want. She's problematic in
this area, this area, and this area, so I will
not vote for her. There are a lot of people,
progressive minded folks that simply could not cast a vote
for Kamala Harris, and under no circumstances would they ever
(09:29):
vote for Donald Trump. So they stayed home, or they
told themselves they'd be voting third party, which is effectively
staying home. Correct, one of those two people was going
to be the president, and you had a choice. It
always goes that way. And so what Q was trying
to suggest to folks that kind of were saying this
(09:51):
at that moment, what Q was saying was one of
these people, you can gotiate with one of them. You
can't power one of these people. None, neither of them
is going to give you what you want. But one
of them is going to end up with that power.
(10:13):
That's one of them, even if it's just the the
optics that you can negotiate. That's more than a person
who says up front before we've elected him, I'm not
it doesn't matter what you want, doesn't matter. I'm doing me.
That's the whole thing. And you know these progressive mind,
if you you know exactly what we're saying. So to
(10:36):
your point when you're talking about, okay, I need to
let this individual on the ballot know that he doesn't
have enough signatures. This could be problematic, this could be whatever.
This could make us all look bad if he's found
out as a fraud or whatever, and it makes the
cast the shadow on all of our campaigns or whatever.
(10:57):
I need to let this person know. And then the
rest of the democratic establishment comes to you and says,
we don't do this to each other. No, I absolutely
believe that holding democrats accountable should be the name of
the game. The thing is you have to elect them
so that you can hold them account Yes, because if
the other people win because you were too busy soft
(11:20):
shooting and trying to play nice and not demanding what
it is that you expect of elected officials. You know
what I mean. And of course you can't demand that
unless you elect them. But if you let the opposition
get in, and you know full well that you cannot
negotiate with that opposition. They have an agenda they just
(11:41):
written down and they have executed on all of Project
twenty twenty five, and they plan on turning that up.
There's other projects that have come out since then. They're like, oh,
we got the rein zone, let's run it up. So
I think your point is well made. Excuse me in that, sorry,
in that. Knowing what accountability looks like and what it
(12:03):
leads to is something people need to bear in mind,
especially those who kind of exist within the democratic framework,
the democratic establishment's framework. And my worry has always been
that the sort of good old boys network type of
thing that does exist in democratic circles. I mean, democratic
(12:25):
is more the more progressive party. But indeed there are
still a lot of people that love being power, love
having a big name and walking into rooms and everybody's
let's me take a picture of them. They love that. However,
they have stagnated this party and they have been too
complicit for too long. Yep, They've lost the fight, and
(12:49):
we are now in a period of I guess, rebuilding.
What progressive what the progressive movement looks like? Yeah, in
my estimation, it looks like you. It looks like mere opinion.
It still looks like eighty year old men with white
hair that have been doing this like career politicians. Right,
And so my worry has been that these people have
(13:09):
would have tried to interfere, and it sounds like to
at least some degree, they at least are not getting
the message that is most important for today in terms
of actually winning elections, being accountable not just to your
own integrity and ethics, but to your voter base, and
recognizing your weaknesses because they if the opposition uses that
(13:31):
against your dead in the water, but please share your tho.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
No indeed, I mean that, and it's challenging the status quo.
It's saying again, you know, gentlemen's agreements belong in the
same place as strongly.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Worded letters in the track focus.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It really is the strongly worded letters, and they can
just knock those because it's it's truly again, if we're
going to continue to let things slide in our own party,
how are we ever going to get this train back
on the tracks? I mean, we've got to come together.
And you ask earlier about democratic infighting, and that's been
a really surprising thing for me to witness over the
(14:06):
last nine months of this campaign, is how much you know,
really there is a lot of democratic infighting, and some
of it makes it make more sense why we have
struggled to really organize and coalesce around a message. And
I think that Democrats, currently elected Democrats have an excellent
opportunity right now to lean into these progressive values. And
(14:30):
we all have a responsibility, every one of you listening
to this, all across the country, has a responsibility to
go learn what being a progressive means and teach three
other people what it means, because unfortunately that word has
become polarized.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Progressive, right, You're.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
A socialist, you know whatever, radical, all the things. But
I think that if you ask, I don't know, if
you're familiar with Jordan Kleppery, you know, goes to these
and ask these questions. And I think if you ask
ten people at a rally what progressivism stands for, nobody
would probably be able to answer you. So I think
it's really really important that those of us who are
(15:12):
fighting every moment of every day for progressive values make
sure that those around us truly know what that means.
Because when they do right, healthcare, food, basics, right, these
are the things that the majority of Americans agree on.
They just don't like they have a knee jerk reaction
to the word progressive, right, so we need to take
(15:34):
that back, own that messaging and be like, oh progressive.
Hell yeah, I'm a progressive. You know that means X, Y,
and Z. So I think it's on us too to
educate people about what it actually means to be a progressive.
I like that it's not this like crazy thing that
so many make.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
It out to be. Yeah. I love that. Indeed. So
my teacher has been on the show before, Doctor Camilla
West is probably the first person to say, don't let
them steal woke. Ye, don't let them take that from us.
Woke is a good thing. Yeah, think of the opposite. Yeah,
(16:15):
you want to be asleep? No, stay woke. Know what's happening? Right,
Q same thing, critical race theory. It's a good thing.
You understand the correlation between data and history, and you
recognize the patterns disproportionately affecting different segments of the population.
(16:38):
That's it. It is a collegiate level supposition that there
is a correlation between this set of data and this
set of outcomes. Yeah. Right. Because that the title of
that field of study was co opted and rewritten, it
(16:59):
became Oh, teachers are teaching CRT to kids in kindergarten
making them feel bad about themselves. No kindergarten has ever
been taught critical race theory. You have to be in
college to get that right fully fully formed brain, educationally speaking. Diversity,
(17:21):
equity and inclusion is another one DEI. For them to
switch those letters and switch it from diversity, equity inclusion
to didn't earn it is crazy. It is It is
again that evil genius sort of thing. I mean, if
you said diversity, equity and inclusion to any reasonable person,
they would say, I don't have a problem with diversity.
(17:41):
I don't have a problem with equity, and I don't
have a problem with inclusion, right, but I do have
a problem with de I. Right, this is what you
the administration person on the right.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, this administration brainwashed everyone into believing the dad I
was a dirty word. And it's it's absolutely ridiculous because
they I think it was just the scapegoat. It was
truly just the scapegoat. And I think we can all,
by the way, just like we can take back the
word progressive and we can help people understand what that
(18:12):
actually means. We can rebrand EI. Like, let's rebrand it
because at the end of the day, a diverse workforce
is one that will bring the wins.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
The wins data, data driven argument all day, all day,
every day. Equity.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I mean, you know, I feel like these are friends
on the opposite side of the aisle are so often
yelling no fair, no fair, and we're like equity, we
want equity right, and in the same with inclusion. I mean,
it's it's wild to me how sort of diabolically genius
(18:49):
Donald Trump has been at at rewriting some of these stories.
You know what DEI actually is Pete hag Seth, you know,
talking about I think he made the comment about black pilots,
and you know, I just it's astonishing to me that
we're at this place in time. And yet I think
(19:10):
if we can come together and coalesce, we can rebrand
DEI as something that we can come to the other
side and say, what part of this.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Don't you like? Yeah? Do you want exclusion?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Are you looking for? Yeah? Like exactly so well, where
I was going with that was the idea of a
radical leftist. For me, I've never hidden that I'm one
of my friends once upon a time called me a
bleeding heart liberal and I was like, oh, thank you.
(19:45):
And I don't know if he meant it to hit
me in that way, But I was like, you think
that of me? Oh my yes, I would have never
thought anybody would have thought that about me, And so
I remember that it just sticks out in my mind.
But radical leftist this has kind of been the term
that this administration is used to kind of stoke fears of,
(20:06):
like this boogeyman that's coming to you, and it's it's
been deliberate.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I mean, it's been actual programming language. You can listen
to like John Oliver at night, we'll play clips of
the same phrase that they choose, like for whatever the
week is. Yeah, I feel like they have like a
team meeting in the Oval office and they're like, all right,
the word of the week is left scum. And then
like then I see, you know, everybody's saying the left strum,
(20:29):
the left scum. That's called brainwashing. Sure, it's just called brainwashing.
But I'm with you awoke as a compliment.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Well, the other thing I was I was getting to
is that the idea of a radical leftist to me
feels like I look at it through a very early
nineties lens, when radical meant like something really cool, cool, Yeah,
rab and so that's kind of what I Yeah, I
like it, all right, let's move it on. I appreciate
that though. That that was I think that was really
(20:57):
important to say because if we don't where like a
badge of honor and we kind of feel like we're
getting shunn by it, then they continue to win even harder. Right,
and where does the intentionality? Where do the ideas and
the values go?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And what are we as a collective and we can't
name our values and they are collective? If we've become
a pejorative well said, I do want to ask you this. Recently,
there have been conversations, like you said, it's almost like
a script shared across the right wing media ecosystem that
(21:37):
suggests that violent rhetoric comes from the left. We pushed
back against it on the show. I'm going to give
you a second to talk about that. Do you think
there's any truth to that or so?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I think that this is another one of those absolutely
astonishingly ridiculous double standards, because every single thing that they
claim is a violent a term of violent rhetoric. There
is a recent quotation of somebody in their administration using
the exact same language. So this is what we call gaslighting.
(22:14):
You are using the violent rhetoric, and you are going
to convince me that it's me that's using the violent rhetoric.
So that's part A and Part B is we're taking
away people's food, we're taking away people's healthcare. The average
age of a new home buyer is now forty. People
can't afford their housing right. People got college degrees and
(22:35):
are strapped with student loans that they can't afford. Think
about all the promises we made to a generation that
we're failing on. And then we hear pundins say, I
just can't understand what would drive somebody with that, you know,
that have that kind of violent rhetoric.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
You can't.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I'm not condoning it. I'm not saying it's okay. What
I'm saying give me a break here. We can easily
follow the pathway here and see that. You know, I
will say for the very first time, maybe that his
little show after the you know, the White Horse the
Correspondent Center that was canceled was like it was less
(23:16):
inflammatory than I anticipated, And I think that this guy
still has the opportunity to turn the temperature down. But
do not come at us.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
After saying you would wipe out an entire civilization. Thank you,
thank you, don't gladdrect, don't call it is.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So it's so double standard because again, and I might
have been a late night comic, I can't remember, but
it was a sort of left and right of all, yeah,
of all of the violent rhetoric that were you know,
or these are the exact things that Donald Trump himself
has embraced since he came down the Golden escalator. So
(23:56):
with that said, I think, you know, we do have
have to as leaders in our communities and in politics,
we have to encourage as I know you always embrace.
I always embrace peaceful protest. I always stress it. I keep,
you know, I help de escalate because I know that
we don't want our effort to turn violent and we
(24:18):
don't want people to go try to assassinate the president.
That's not what we want. That's never okay. And also
I think we're in a pretty interesting time. That's pretty
clear why some people are taking these drastic measures.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
If anything, I'll help that live if you agree this
is something that you and I said on a recent episode.
Recent enough, at least what happened to Charlie Kirk you know,
we were on the ground when that happened. We saw
it right as soon as it happened, and it was devastating.
(24:58):
It was right. We didn't pretend it wasn't that we
recognize the implications of it, sure, but to see that
happen to that man, that's not Nobody wanted that. And
I remember saying in that moment, I was talking to
a person that comes on the show sometimes is very
pro Israel, super conservative guy. I call him a friend.
(25:20):
He's one of our apertures into that way of thinking.
We need it on this program just because we need
to know what we're up against. But that's going to
be my brother. That's a choice I made. Sue me
for it. I'm going to lead by example. I'm not
going to do it a lot, but I got one guy,
so anyway, talk to him, and I say everything that
(25:45):
I felt. The world is a for the people that
I advocate for. Things have changed, things might even be
easier without such a strong, powerful voice that it's based
in what we consider to be hate at having been silenced. However,
(26:06):
and I was crying as I said this to him. However,
I didn't want that, and I'm calling you because I
don't want that to happen to you. I don't know
what's happening out there, but I saw man lose his
life today. I was in tears. You can he would,
he would, he would corroborate this.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I was in La talking to him. He might have
been in Boston or something, and I told him, I said,
I wish he would have found his own way to
the truth. Yes, that would have been a better outcome. Yes,
And I remember saying that, and again, he would corroborate this.
Anybody that needs to know now. Funnily enough, prior to
(26:44):
to Charlie Kirk, there was a person that we had
a huge problem with spilling all kinds of negativity and
nonsense into the airwaves. His name was Tucker Carlson. Tucker
Carlson said the worst things that were so unfounded to
the most vulnerable people who build their whole lives around
being afraid, and then right after fear is hate, and
(27:08):
he just monetized that line for all these people. And
Tucker Carlson found I don't know if he found his
way all the way around, but he's recently said some
things where I'm like, hey, he's taken accountability for what
he's done, what he's contributed to this world, that it
was toxic that resulted in this current administration, and that's
not nothing. How do I want Donald Trump to get assassinated? No?
(27:33):
Do I think he's going to find his way. Absolutely not.
But if you were to ask me what it is
I would want, and I think a lot of people
on the left would agree, it's no one wants anybody
to get hurt. We want people to find their way.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Your closing thoughts, Yeah, I think that's really well said.
I think people feel there's a certain sense of desperation
going on and we just really need to come together
and support each other.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Well, preciate that. Sorry, I appreciate that. And before we
let you go one more time, plug your social media,
your website.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Everything website is Nurse Lee, the number four a Z
dot com. You can find us on social Instagram, threads, Facebook,
all the places at Nurse Lee again the number four
a Z.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
All right, Well, congressional candidate Elizabeth Lee, thank you again
for coming and sharing your insight. We wish you all
the success on your journey and hopefully we'll see you
in that seat soon enough. Yes, if you want to
lock in with us, you can do so at Civic
Cipher at that's c I V I C c I
p h e R dot com. You can find me
(28:39):
on all platforms at Ramsesjoq at I amqward on all platforms.
And until next time, y'all peace,
All right, welcome back to the Civic Cipher Studios. Still
in the saddle here with your host, Rams's Jah and
we are joined by congressional candidate Elizabeth Lee, who is
a nationally recognized nurse Board certified patient advocate and reproductive
healthcare policy expert with over a decade of experience advancing
access to care. She built a career helping thousands of
patients navigate complex medical, financial, and ethical barriers, while also
(00:22):
advising lawmakers on federal IBF and reproductive health protections. You
can find her online at Nurse Lee or a Z
That time I got it with less marbles.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
So let's talk about your campaign. Yes, you mentioned that
you did not take money from APAC. A lot of
people at present would think of that as being a
good thing. Yes, which is lialth Hey, it's what it is.
(00:53):
But now let's talk about turning Point USA. Last time
you're on the show, yep, you mentioned that turning Point
USA was a concer that you had to bear in
mind for your campaign. Now that would have been a
sort of step two. Step one is turns out democrats.
So talk about you know the concerns that you have
(01:16):
on your campaign, and indeed for other campaigns that might
be taking place around the country, because I think the
Democratic Party is having a reckoning with their allegiance to APEC,
some of the decisions they've made in the past, some
of their complacency with their constituents. They took a lot
(01:39):
of things for granted for a long time. So again,
you're a person that's actually in the saddle, and you
may I think you do inspire many other people to
do more than what they're doing. Again, talk about the
concerns you have turning Point USA Democratic inviting people, you know,
things that people wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, I guess I'll start by saying that, Yeah, the
turning Point issue is definitely a forefront concern. With that said,
I'll say the concern is less than it was when
I was last on your show with the SRP candidates,
because that was an election that they played very heavily in.
They invested a lot of their time, money and canvassers
(02:21):
into that.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Election, invested a lot of their time. That's right.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So a religious organization invested millions of dollars in these campaigns.
So I mean, I think everyone listening should ask themselves
why that is.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Why would a religious organization that's politically aligned want to
control the utility company?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Right just but you know, in any case, and what
is heartening about all of that is that they really
didn't win because the clean energy team won the majority.
That was a loss to turning point, which is a
good good sign for it's a good sign. It could
have been way worse because had they taken the whole board.
I think that those of us who were facing challengers
(03:08):
that will have TPUSA money, we're starting to go, oh my,
that's going to like be going off the deep end.
But the good news is that for right now, they
were not able to make their organizing machine turn out
the results that they wanted. With that said, my eventual
Republican opponent, Mark Lamb has MAGA money, TPUSA money. He
(03:31):
has money from every which way that you could imagine.
And a great example of why this is problematic when
I am running a grassroots campaign, I've taken money from
over twenty two hundred individual contributors, and all of that
has been small dollar donations. I get messages on dms
on socials that say, hey, there's a giant Mark Lamb
(03:53):
sign out here at the corner of blank and blank.
You might want to get some signs up, and I'm like,
you might want to donate one hundred dollars for that
sign friend. So that's something that's it's worrisome because I
can do a lot with a little. I was born
and raised in a family we had very little, so
I knew how to do a lot with a little
from a very young age.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
But you can't.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I don't know if you can win a congressional election,
if you can run a win a congressional campaign without
some money. I mean, it's just kind of it is
what it is. And what's frustrating about it is that
because it's a primary, a lot of folks are reticent
to participate in primaries, specifically to fund primaries, and yet
turning point is funding primaries all over the place. So unfortunately,
(04:35):
I think you have probably you understand this as well
as anybody.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That it's like the double standard.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
You don't want us to take this money, but you
don't want to give us your money either. It's a
tough line of walk, but at the end of the day,
people power when we organize, we know people power is
what wins. And so even under the threat of Mark
Lamb having effectively what's going to feel like unlimited money.
We have to be very strategic and not do this
(05:09):
whole campaigning thing like we've always done it. We cannot
nominate somebody to go up against Mark Lamb that is
not going to have the backbone to stand up to
him in the general election.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
We just can't.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And if the Democratic Party wants to start redeeming itself
a bit in terms of messaging and in terms of
what it supports, you know, getting behind these grassroots candidates,
especially ones that are on the progressive side of things,
it's what the people are asking for all across the country.
The people are asking for progressive candidates who are going
(05:45):
to be bold, who are not going to be the
strongly awarded letter gentlemen's agreements group.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Okay, so have you encountered that type of Democrat or
maybe have you encountered maybe some sort of opposition from
Democrats toward your I guess more progressive ideas or maybe
(06:12):
you in general. Has that been something he bumped up against?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
You know, I'll say that my own apprehension about leaning
into my progressive values was probably more than anyone else's
opinion on it, only because I really want to give
the people of CD five an amazing representative, and I
don't want to do anything that jeopardizes that, you know
what I mean. But you know, I think we're going
(06:41):
to have to break out of these mindsets that we have,
these like strongly held constructs about how things should go.
And I'm going to be vulnerable for a second, but
I think it's really important in my race. In the
process of verifying all of our ballot petition signatures, it
came to our attention that one of our editors did
not have enough signatures, and we did what I think
(07:04):
any good human should do and was just like let
him know and said, hey, you know, here's the receipts.
You don't have enough. You really audit your op out.
That's just the right thing to do. There's a law
that says this many saving strits, you don't have them,
you don't get on the ballot.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
This is very simple.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And Ramsey's the amount of people who were so angry
at me for holding his feet to the fire on
that really blew my mind because so many people said
that's we don't do that to each other. The Democrats
don't do that to each other. We don't challenge each other.
What do you mean if we can't hold our candidates
(07:36):
to the very bare minimum standard that is required, who
would I be after spending the last nine months telling
people all across my district and all across this country
who supported me, that I am going to stand for accountability.
I am going to hold people responsible even when it's hard.
I believe my path to victory in this race is
(07:59):
standing in the truth.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Thank you. I want to add something here and again,
I'm going to do this on behalf of Q. I
think you would appreciate it. When you have a commitment
to the truth, it is a tough commitment to honor
(08:22):
if you are also trying to do right by people.
Believe it or not, Yes, because the truth it's almost
like that that's saying from that movie you can't handle
the truth sometimes, but and the same breath, I can say,
the truth will set you free. And something I've said
on a recent episode is the truth does not care
about your feelings about it. It will stay. Now Here's
(08:46):
why I like what you said. When Kamala Harris was
running against Donald Trump, there were a group of people,
I think progressive minded people who said to themselves. Kamala
(09:07):
Harris is not everything that we want. She's problematic in
this area, this area, and this area, so I will
not vote for her. There are a lot of people,
progressive minded folks that simply could not cast a vote
for Kamala Harris, and under no circumstances would they ever
(09:29):
vote for Donald Trump. So they stayed home, or they
told themselves they'd be voting third party, which is effectively
staying home. Correct, one of those two people was going
to be the president, and you had a choice. It
always goes that way. And so what Q was trying
to suggest to folks that kind of were saying this
(09:51):
at that moment, what Q was saying was one of
these people, you can gotiate with one of them. You
can't power one of these people. None, neither of them
is going to give you what you want. But one
of them is going to end up with that power.
(10:13):
That's one of them, even if it's just the the
optics that you can negotiate. That's more than a person
who says up front before we've elected him, I'm not
it doesn't matter what you want, doesn't matter. I'm doing me.
That's the whole thing. And you know these progressive mind,
if you you know exactly what we're saying. So to
(10:36):
your point when you're talking about, okay, I need to
let this individual on the ballot know that he doesn't
have enough signatures. This could be problematic, this could be whatever.
This could make us all look bad if he's found
out as a fraud or whatever, and it makes the
cast the shadow on all of our campaigns or whatever.
(10:57):
I need to let this person know. And then the
rest of the democratic establishment comes to you and says,
we don't do this to each other. No, I absolutely
believe that holding democrats accountable should be the name of
the game. The thing is you have to elect them
so that you can hold them account Yes, because if
the other people win because you were too busy soft
(11:20):
shooting and trying to play nice and not demanding what
it is that you expect of elected officials. You know
what I mean. And of course you can't demand that
unless you elect them. But if you let the opposition
get in, and you know full well that you cannot
negotiate with that opposition. They have an agenda they just
(11:41):
written down and they have executed on all of Project
twenty twenty five, and they plan on turning that up.
There's other projects that have come out since then. They're like, oh,
we got the rein zone, let's run it up. So
I think your point is well made. Excuse me in that, sorry,
in that. Knowing what accountability looks like and what it
(12:03):
leads to is something people need to bear in mind,
especially those who kind of exist within the democratic framework,
the democratic establishment's framework. And my worry has always been
that the sort of good old boys network type of
thing that does exist in democratic circles. I mean, democratic
(12:25):
is more the more progressive party. But indeed there are
still a lot of people that love being power, love
having a big name and walking into rooms and everybody's
let's me take a picture of them. They love that. However,
they have stagnated this party and they have been too
complicit for too long. Yep, They've lost the fight, and
(12:49):
we are now in a period of I guess, rebuilding.
What progressive what the progressive movement looks like? Yeah, in
my estimation, it looks like you. It looks like mere opinion.
It still looks like eighty year old men with white
hair that have been doing this like career politicians. Right,
And so my worry has been that these people have
(13:09):
would have tried to interfere, and it sounds like to
at least some degree, they at least are not getting
the message that is most important for today in terms
of actually winning elections, being accountable not just to your
own integrity and ethics, but to your voter base, and
recognizing your weaknesses because they if the opposition uses that
(13:31):
against your dead in the water, but please share your tho.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
No indeed, I mean that, and it's challenging the status quo.
It's saying again, you know, gentlemen's agreements belong in the
same place as strongly.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Worded letters in the track focus.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It really is the strongly worded letters, and they can
just knock those because it's it's truly again, if we're
going to continue to let things slide in our own party,
how are we ever going to get this train back
on the tracks? I mean, we've got to come together.
And you ask earlier about democratic infighting, and that's been
a really surprising thing for me to witness over the
(14:06):
last nine months of this campaign, is how much you know,
really there is a lot of democratic infighting, and some
of it makes it make more sense why we have
struggled to really organize and coalesce around a message. And
I think that Democrats, currently elected Democrats have an excellent
opportunity right now to lean into these progressive values. And
(14:30):
we all have a responsibility, every one of you listening
to this, all across the country, has a responsibility to
go learn what being a progressive means and teach three
other people what it means, because unfortunately that word has
become polarized.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Progressive, right, You're.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
A socialist, you know whatever, radical, all the things. But
I think that if you ask, I don't know, if
you're familiar with Jordan Kleppery, you know, goes to these
and ask these questions. And I think if you ask
ten people at a rally what progressivism stands for, nobody
would probably be able to answer you. So I think
it's really really important that those of us who are
(15:12):
fighting every moment of every day for progressive values make
sure that those around us truly know what that means.
Because when they do right, healthcare, food, basics, right, these
are the things that the majority of Americans agree on.
They just don't like they have a knee jerk reaction
to the word progressive, right, so we need to take
(15:34):
that back, own that messaging and be like, oh progressive.
Hell yeah, I'm a progressive. You know that means X, Y,
and Z. So I think it's on us too to
educate people about what it actually means to be a progressive.
I like that it's not this like crazy thing that
so many make.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
It out to be. Yeah. I love that. Indeed. So
my teacher has been on the show before, Doctor Camilla
West is probably the first person to say, don't let
them steal woke. Ye, don't let them take that from us.
Woke is a good thing. Yeah, think of the opposite. Yeah,
(16:15):
you want to be asleep? No, stay woke. Know what's happening? Right,
Q same thing, critical race theory. It's a good thing.
You understand the correlation between data and history, and you
recognize the patterns disproportionately affecting different segments of the population.
(16:38):
That's it. It is a collegiate level supposition that there
is a correlation between this set of data and this
set of outcomes. Yeah. Right. Because that the title of
that field of study was co opted and rewritten, it
(16:59):
became Oh, teachers are teaching CRT to kids in kindergarten
making them feel bad about themselves. No kindergarten has ever
been taught critical race theory. You have to be in
college to get that right fully fully formed brain, educationally speaking. Diversity,
(17:21):
equity and inclusion is another one DEI. For them to
switch those letters and switch it from diversity, equity inclusion
to didn't earn it is crazy. It is It is
again that evil genius sort of thing. I mean, if
you said diversity, equity and inclusion to any reasonable person,
they would say, I don't have a problem with diversity.
(17:41):
I don't have a problem with equity, and I don't
have a problem with inclusion, right, but I do have
a problem with de I. Right, this is what you
the administration person on the right.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, this administration brainwashed everyone into believing the dad I
was a dirty word. And it's it's absolutely ridiculous because
they I think it was just the scapegoat. It was
truly just the scapegoat. And I think we can all,
by the way, just like we can take back the
word progressive and we can help people understand what that
(18:12):
actually means. We can rebrand EI. Like, let's rebrand it
because at the end of the day, a diverse workforce
is one that will bring the wins.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
The wins data, data driven argument all day, all day,
every day. Equity.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I mean, you know, I feel like these are friends
on the opposite side of the aisle are so often
yelling no fair, no fair, and we're like equity, we
want equity right, and in the same with inclusion. I mean,
it's it's wild to me how sort of diabolically genius
(18:49):
Donald Trump has been at at rewriting some of these stories.
You know what DEI actually is Pete hag Seth, you know,
talking about I think he made the comment about black pilots,
and you know, I just it's astonishing to me that
we're at this place in time. And yet I think
(19:10):
if we can come together and coalesce, we can rebrand
DEI as something that we can come to the other
side and say, what part of this.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Don't you like? Yeah? Do you want exclusion?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Are you looking for? Yeah? Like exactly so well, where
I was going with that was the idea of a
radical leftist. For me, I've never hidden that I'm one
of my friends once upon a time called me a
bleeding heart liberal and I was like, oh, thank you.
(19:45):
And I don't know if he meant it to hit
me in that way, But I was like, you think
that of me? Oh my yes, I would have never
thought anybody would have thought that about me, And so
I remember that it just sticks out in my mind.
But radical leftist this has kind of been the term
that this administration is used to kind of stoke fears of,
(20:06):
like this boogeyman that's coming to you, and it's it's
been deliberate.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I mean, it's been actual programming language. You can listen
to like John Oliver at night, we'll play clips of
the same phrase that they choose, like for whatever the
week is. Yeah, I feel like they have like a
team meeting in the Oval office and they're like, all right,
the word of the week is left scum. And then
like then I see, you know, everybody's saying the left strum,
(20:29):
the left scum. That's called brainwashing. Sure, it's just called brainwashing.
But I'm with you awoke as a compliment.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Well, the other thing I was I was getting to
is that the idea of a radical leftist to me
feels like I look at it through a very early
nineties lens, when radical meant like something really cool, cool, Yeah,
rab and so that's kind of what I Yeah, I
like it, all right, let's move it on. I appreciate
that though. That that was I think that was really
(20:57):
important to say because if we don't where like a
badge of honor and we kind of feel like we're
getting shunn by it, then they continue to win even harder. Right,
and where does the intentionality? Where do the ideas and
the values go?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And what are we as a collective and we can't
name our values and they are collective? If we've become
a pejorative well said, I do want to ask you this. Recently,
there have been conversations, like you said, it's almost like
a script shared across the right wing media ecosystem that
(21:37):
suggests that violent rhetoric comes from the left. We pushed
back against it on the show. I'm going to give
you a second to talk about that. Do you think
there's any truth to that or so?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I think that this is another one of those absolutely
astonishingly ridiculous double standards, because every single thing that they
claim is a violent a term of violent rhetoric. There
is a recent quotation of somebody in their administration using
the exact same language. So this is what we call gaslighting.
(22:14):
You are using the violent rhetoric, and you are going
to convince me that it's me that's using the violent rhetoric.
So that's part A and Part B is we're taking
away people's food, we're taking away people's healthcare. The average
age of a new home buyer is now forty. People
can't afford their housing right. People got college degrees and
(22:35):
are strapped with student loans that they can't afford. Think
about all the promises we made to a generation that
we're failing on. And then we hear pundins say, I
just can't understand what would drive somebody with that, you know,
that have that kind of violent rhetoric.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
You can't.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I'm not condoning it. I'm not saying it's okay. What
I'm saying give me a break here. We can easily
follow the pathway here and see that. You know, I
will say for the very first time, maybe that his
little show after the you know, the White Horse the
Correspondent Center that was canceled was like it was less
(23:16):
inflammatory than I anticipated, And I think that this guy
still has the opportunity to turn the temperature down. But
do not come at us.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
After saying you would wipe out an entire civilization. Thank you,
thank you, don't gladdrect, don't call it is.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So it's so double standard because again, and I might
have been a late night comic, I can't remember, but
it was a sort of left and right of all, yeah,
of all of the violent rhetoric that were you know,
or these are the exact things that Donald Trump himself
has embraced since he came down the Golden escalator. So
(23:56):
with that said, I think, you know, we do have
have to as leaders in our communities and in politics,
we have to encourage as I know you always embrace.
I always embrace peaceful protest. I always stress it. I keep,
you know, I help de escalate because I know that
we don't want our effort to turn violent and we
(24:18):
don't want people to go try to assassinate the president.
That's not what we want. That's never okay. And also
I think we're in a pretty interesting time. That's pretty
clear why some people are taking these drastic measures.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
If anything, I'll help that live if you agree this
is something that you and I said on a recent episode.
Recent enough, at least what happened to Charlie Kirk you know,
we were on the ground when that happened. We saw
it right as soon as it happened, and it was devastating.
(24:58):
It was right. We didn't pretend it wasn't that we
recognize the implications of it, sure, but to see that
happen to that man, that's not Nobody wanted that. And
I remember saying in that moment, I was talking to
a person that comes on the show sometimes is very
pro Israel, super conservative guy. I call him a friend.
(25:20):
He's one of our apertures into that way of thinking.
We need it on this program just because we need
to know what we're up against. But that's going to
be my brother. That's a choice I made. Sue me
for it. I'm going to lead by example. I'm not
going to do it a lot, but I got one guy,
so anyway, talk to him, and I say everything that
(25:45):
I felt. The world is a for the people that
I advocate for. Things have changed, things might even be
easier without such a strong, powerful voice that it's based
in what we consider to be hate at having been silenced. However,
(26:06):
and I was crying as I said this to him. However,
I didn't want that, and I'm calling you because I
don't want that to happen to you. I don't know
what's happening out there, but I saw man lose his
life today. I was in tears. You can he would,
he would, he would corroborate this.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I was in La talking to him. He might have
been in Boston or something, and I told him, I said,
I wish he would have found his own way to
the truth. Yes, that would have been a better outcome. Yes,
And I remember saying that, and again, he would corroborate this.
Anybody that needs to know now. Funnily enough, prior to
(26:44):
to Charlie Kirk, there was a person that we had
a huge problem with spilling all kinds of negativity and
nonsense into the airwaves. His name was Tucker Carlson. Tucker
Carlson said the worst things that were so unfounded to
the most vulnerable people who build their whole lives around
being afraid, and then right after fear is hate, and
(27:08):
he just monetized that line for all these people. And
Tucker Carlson found I don't know if he found his
way all the way around, but he's recently said some
things where I'm like, hey, he's taken accountability for what
he's done, what he's contributed to this world, that it
was toxic that resulted in this current administration, and that's
not nothing. How do I want Donald Trump to get assassinated? No?
(27:33):
Do I think he's going to find his way. Absolutely not.
But if you were to ask me what it is
I would want, and I think a lot of people
on the left would agree, it's no one wants anybody
to get hurt. We want people to find their way.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Your closing thoughts, Yeah, I think that's really well said.
I think people feel there's a certain sense of desperation
going on and we just really need to come together
and support each other.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Well, preciate that. Sorry, I appreciate that. And before we
let you go one more time, plug your social media,
your website.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Everything website is Nurse Lee, the number four a Z
dot com. You can find us on social Instagram, threads, Facebook,
all the places at Nurse Lee again the number four
a Z.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
All right, Well, congressional candidate Elizabeth Lee, thank you again
for coming and sharing your insight. We wish you all
the success on your journey and hopefully we'll see you
in that seat soon enough. Yes, if you want to
lock in with us, you can do so at Civic
Cipher at that's c I V I C c I
p h e R dot com. You can find me
(28:39):
on all platforms at Ramsesjoq at I amqward on all platforms.
And until next time, y'all peace,
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