Ben, Beleh, and Max sit down with Congressman Seth Magaziner (RI-2) for a candid conversation on banning congressional stock trading, Trump’s next-level corruption, and why Democrats must overhaul their messaging to win back young voters.
Magaziner kicks things off by giving an inside look at the exclusive House members' gym — who lifts the most, which Republicans hit the CrossFit circuit, and the surreal moment he walked in on Jim Jordan in a towel (01:14).
Then, the conversation shifts to Trump’s staggering corruption and why his financial grifts — ranging from his crypto scam to lawsuits that conveniently result in massive settlements — make previous scandals look small by comparison (17:39). Magaziner breaks down why Congress must ban stock trading among its members to rebuild public trust and counter Trump’s “everyone’s corrupt” narrative (19:27).
Later, they discuss how Democrats lost young men in 2024, why ignoring online media cost them the election, and how the party must engage with voters where they actually are — on podcasts, YouTube, and social media (29:03). He also explains why Democrats need a concrete policy agenda to match the GOP’s Project 2025, and how economic populism could help Dems win back working-class voters (33:50).
Wrapping up, Magaziner reveals his "Vacation for Everyone" bill — a push to guarantee every American worker 10 days of paid time off (48:47). Plus, he weighs in on the Celtics' championship hopes, Mahomes vs. Brady, and why he was rooting against the Eagles in the Super Bowl (07:31).
This episode is packed with insider stories, sharp political analysis, and a fresh strategy for Democrats to reclaim their winning coalition.
Follow Congressman Seth Magaziner @SethMagaziner + @Rep_Magaziner, Beleh @Btoma15, Ben @BenBartlettt, and Brogressive Podcast @BrogressivePod on Twitter/X.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Well, good morning and welcome to the newest episode of
Progressive. I'm Orange and Juice
Representative Seth Magaziner asour newest guest.
Representative Magaziner, how are you?
How are you doing today? Great.
I'm great. Thank you for having me.
I'm a big fan of what you guys are doing.
I think it's awesome and happy to be here with you.
Glad to hear it. I was going to say it's truly an
honor. And I got to say like my heart's
still like a little warm not getting to call it a
(00:29):
representative like on a first name basis.
Like I say, it's kind of like a pipe dream.
But for all this, we don't know.Representative Magaziner is a
representative from Rhode Island's second Congressional
District. He's been serving since 2023.
Taking over for representative. I said Lang Langovan.
Am I saying that right? Yeah, Jim Langvan.
Jim Langvan, you had served as the 31st General Treasurer of
(00:50):
Rhode Island from 2015 till 2023when he came to join Congress.
So, Congressman, real quick, I want to open something up with
completely off what you're expecting.
I know you're a big fan of the House, Jim.
When Belay and I were interns, we went to the staff gym.
He was a big fan of it. I walked in immediately went,
Nope, not going to happen, too small.
But for you, you get to use the representative, Jim, the actual
members. Jim, how is it?
(01:11):
How's the milk Whitman? And who is the strongest House
Democrat? Well, it's a scene.
First of all, being a member of Congress is an honor.
It's it's an honor to get to do the job.
I love the job even in these like very challenging times, but
there aren't like a lot of traditional perks to the job.
And this is one of them is there's like an enormous gym in
the basement of one of the houseoffice buildings and it's only
for members and their Staffs. I'm sorry, members in there are
(01:34):
spouses. Excuse me.
So like it's never that crowded.And so as I understand, I've
never been to the staff gym, butas I understand it, that's the
problem with the staff gym is that like it's, it gets crowded.
I've been told. So the members gym is enormous.
It's like multi level. There's a pool, there's a not
quite full size basketball court.
There's like steam rooms and saunas that are like kind of
(01:56):
sketchy that I don't go into, but I don't I don't really
understand. And so it's enormous and there's
like lots of stuff, but it hasn't been updated since like
probably the Cold War. Like it, it's got like a very
60s kind of like feel to it. Like the machines are modern,
but like the walls, the floors, the showers, all it like it
feels like, I don't know, it feels like 1970s, nineteen 80s
(02:21):
era, like it hasn't been updatedsince then, I guess because they
just like can't justify spendingthe money on like upgrading the
House members gym and and yeah, and it's weird.
It's like one of the only, I would say, like truly bipartisan
social spaces in Congress. One of the things that was
surprising to me coming from Rhode Island, we're like, you
(02:42):
know, Rhode Island, we're a veryblue state, but we do have some
Republicans in the State House and like we all see each other
all the time. We all see each other at the
same bars all the time, the samerestaurants, whatever.
In Congress. It's not like that as much like
the social scene is very segregated by by party.
And so it's like one of the few places where you go and like
Republicans and Democrats are doing stuff together.
(03:02):
And like, frankly, that can be alittle, you know, like my
literally my first time I ever went into the house gym.
I got there, I was getting a tour and I went to the locker
room and like there was Jim Jordan wearing like only a
towel. And I was just like, I'm never.
I'm never going to Unsee that. And like, welcome to Congress.
Like here we are. You're welcome.
Yeah. Like which Democrats are like
(03:22):
the gym MVPS? I would say like Jimmy Panetta
is kind of a beast from California.
Josh Gottheimer is there a lot like those two probably stand
out and in like a different kindof way.
Like Mike Levin from California is like, wow.
Yeah. He's like always like in a
different way because he like he's not like he has a lift a
(03:45):
lot like Jimmy doesn't necessarily, but he's like on
the bike and he's like in reallygood like aerobic shape
California. Thing of him to do.
Totally, totally. He's like on the Peloton, like,
you know, for like hours a day, I think.
And then there's AI just starteddoing there's a morning CrossFit
class like early, early morning that I just finally got talked
(04:08):
into doing that's bipartisan andit's led by Mark Wayne Mullen,
which is, you know, the the senator from Oklahoma who you
know, is is pretty out there, but is.
He's a strong guy. He's a strong guy.
I think he I think he has some like MMA in his background and
stuff. Yeah, I think so.
(04:28):
Like that's when Democrats and Republicans like Josh does that
one Moulton, Steph Moulton does that a lot is actually Marie
Gluzan Camp Perez, who talked meinto going.
It's very, it's very intense andbut you know, it's a good way to
start the day before we start like the real battles in
Congress. I got to say you couldn't pay me
enough money to take a CrossFit class.
(04:50):
I I've been a personal trainer for the last 3 1/2 years at UC
Santa Barbara. And sometimes I watch CrossFit
videos just to like just to get my morning like a little, little
little hatred in my day, you know, start with my coffee.
But. Yeah, yeah.
And like, and like Mark Wayne Mullen, like I've, I've never
spoken to him outside of that class.
And like he's mean. Like he like if you're not
keeping up, like he's not like apatient, like he's not like a
(05:12):
patient leader of that group. He will like get in your base,
which it's not. I like that.
It's not for everybody, but whatever.
Interesting. I would say so.
So tell us a little bit more about the basketball court.
Do you guys ever play pick up? I would say, is that like the
congressional basketball games? Who's who's putting down these
triple double S? I've been trying to put a like
get a group together, but like there aren't, there aren't
(05:32):
enough people who are like really into it whose schedules
line up. There is a so there is a
congressional basketball game. It's not as well known or not as
big as the congressional baseball game.
Like congressional baseball games, obviously very historic
and huge and like 50,000 people go to Nat Stadium and it's on
TV. The basketball game is a lot
smaller and very much not on TV,but they do it once a year and I
(05:56):
did it last year and they weren't like on the Dems, like
for Dems. So Reggie Love still comes and
plays in that every year. You know, he was Obama's body
man back in the day and was a Duke basketball player.
Who else on the Dems side? Dan Goldman, Gabe Vasquez, Kevin
Mullen, More Republicans than Democrats, to be honest.
They do it the way they do it. It's a because they're just like
(06:19):
aren't enough of us who play? It's not Democrats versus
Republicans like the baseball game is.
It's members versus lobbyists. And the members historically get
one like NBA, like one ringer, like one NBA player on our team
because like, we're all old and out of shape.
But like the lobbyists, like a lot of them are like former
(06:39):
college players and stuff like who are good, like guys who
played like D1 basketball. And they would kick our asses if
if like we didn't have little helps.
Last year we had NS Freedom, NS Cantor Freedom, who, like he,
used to play. On your Celtics, Yeah.
Yeah, that's right. And so he was on our team and
(07:00):
like that made it kind of even it was not a we won, but only by
like a few points it. When is when is LeBron coming
out there? I mean I assume once he retires.
When he's the sitting senator from Ohio.
Yeah. Staying on the NBAI know you're
a big Boston Celtics fan. I'm curious, like what are your
(07:20):
thoughts on the season so far? What are your how are you
feeling about the potential repeat?
And I'm a big Warriors fans, we now kind of have your two
kryptonites. We got Curry and Jimmy Butler.
So I'm curious what what team are you most scared of in the
West? And how are you feeling about
your chances to repeat? It's a good question.
I mean, so first of all, like, Ifeel great about being a Celtics
fan right now. Like we're we're I think we're
(07:42):
the best team in the league. Going back-to-back is really
hard, right? Like going back-to-back is
really hard. And especially you think about
our core, you know, they played,you know, in the finals, so
they're playing into June. Then three of them went to the
Olympics and you know, Porzingiswas was recovering from an
injury. And so like, like a lot of the
(08:03):
core guys didn't get a lot of rest.
And so like, it's got to be likesuch a marathon for them.
Like just going all the way to the finals, playing 100 plus
games, then going to the Olympics, three of them, then
like right back into the season and being shorthanded at the
beginning of the season and and other guys having to play more.
So like, you know, honestly, like the fact that we're second
(08:24):
in the East right now at the AllStar break.
I feel great about like that's given all of that wear and tear,
like that's really good. So I feel good about it.
Like I'd rather, I think at thispoint it's mostly a game of
staying healthy and like I wouldrather be the second or third
seed healthy than the first seedbanged up.
And yeah, we'll see what happens.
And I'm like the West. I don't know.
(08:44):
I'm. There's only one right answer,
Seth. We're supposed to say Oklahoma
City and like, they are scary, but like, I feel like, I feel
like Lucas got something to prove now, yes.
That's what we're looking for. And like what I was looking,
we're not, you know, amazing, but.
Rivalry. They love that Celtics Lakers
rivalry. I I don't know if the Lakers
(09:04):
quite are complete enough as a team but like that.
We're getting there. That'd be pretty cool.
When when that Lucca trade dropped, I was it was like 9:30
PM here in LA and I just instantly started screaming and
my roommate was a Clippers man. He's like, what happened?
What happened? I'm like, we got Luca.
He's like, no, it's one of thosefake accounts because Elon just
allows every fake account to be verified.
Now it's like it's one of those fake account, click on it.
(09:26):
He's like, my God, you guys got Luca.
Best night of my life. It was so good.
And then I called my friend who was a Celtics fan.
He's lives right down the street.
He's been a Celtics Celtics fan.He's from Panama, but he's a
huge Celtics fan because his dad's a Celtics fan.
And I just started yelling at him.
He goes, you're lying, bro. There's no way Luke is there.
I was like, yeah, he is. I'm like, he's like, bro, now we
(09:46):
have to. So he's he's he's, he's pissy
now because he really likes Lucaand, and I just, I just crap on
the Celtics all the time. But what's funny is my first, my
first year at UCLA, my roommates, I was a Lakers fan.
My roommate was a Celtics fan. My other roommate was a Warriors
fan. So our second year, I think the
the the, the Celtics and the andthe and the Warriors, that's
(10:07):
when they played in the Finals. And it was like just complete
like depression for my friend Louise, who's a Celtics fan.
And I was like, you know, I can't really talk and I can't
talk crap because the Lakers weren't that good that year.
But I mean, now you got to see them win and you guys go
back-to-back. You guys will get more of my
respect. But most of your rings do come
from the dinosaur age. I do got to say that.
(10:29):
Yeah. OK, does Minnesota rings count
then, boy. It's the franchise they should
count, right? I mean, they just move.
It's not their fault they have to move.
It's not the players fault. Yeah, I mean, again, like on the
on paper, like no doubt the sellers are the best team in the
league. I know I'm biased, but like no
doubt like that that top is. But like, you know, like
especially the way the game is played today, like it's just
(10:49):
hard to go a whole season back-to-back.
So we'll see. I'm hopeful.
I'm hopeful. We've seen bigger, bigger
miracles, I'm gonna say, in the same vein of it's not exactly,
well, not the same vein, but back-to-back.
Obviously last weekend was a Super Bowl.
What do you think about the Chiefs is getting, I mean, just
blown out? I mean, that was almost hard to
watch. What Any thoughts on that?
So, yeah, and I was like kind ofa contrarian here in New England
about this because a lot of people, you know, were rooting
(11:11):
for the Eagles because they, like, want it to be established
that, like, Brady is the GOAT, right?
And that, like, Mahomes is not. And.
And so there was like a big strain of that out here.
But I just like, Eagles fans arethe worst.
Like Philly fans in general are the.
They're pretty bad. Absolute worst, you know, I know
(11:31):
like people like, oh, New England, you suck to well, like
no, Philly fans are terrible. I can't root for the Eagles.
You know, Travis Kelsey seems like a good guy.
I don't like, I don't want to, you know, but I was, I was
hoping for a better game and I was hoping for better
commercials like week this year.Yeah, the commercials were
disappointing, right? I wasn't the only one thinking
about that. They're all like these.
(11:53):
They seem like they're just likeAI written like we'll just like
insert random celebrities and inspirational phrases.
And it's like, what are you evenselling?
Like, I don't, you know, are you?
A big Patriots fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, what do you think about the Patriots stadium?
Foxboro is actually closer to Providence than it is to Boston.
It's only like it's only like 20minutes from Providence and a
(12:15):
lot of the away teams actually stay in Providence when they're
here. Yeah, I mean.
How do you feel about Drake? May I think you guys found like
a a star in him and then Mike Vrabel.
Now I think I feel bad about what happened to, you know,
Mayo, But I mean, you got to move and when Vrabel is
available and Vrabel has that connection with the patriots.
So I I think that he could really do something.
Yeah, I mean, hope springs eternal, right?
(12:36):
We'll see. I mean, you know, people forget
like people just like New England teams like across all
major sports that like we just win everything for the last 20
plus years. But like like when I was a kid,
it didn't used to be like that. We had a long drought from like
Celtics in 86 to Patriots and like 01/02.
We had almost like A2 decade drought where like Patriots were
(13:00):
terrible, Celtics were terrible,Bruins and Red Sox would like be
OK every once in a while, but never like never make it.
And like so like, I don't know, like I think we're used to read
like we we do know what it's like to have to rebuild.
So I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful thatlike, you know, that we've got
enough young talent that we can we can turn things around, but
(13:21):
we'll see. I think the young.
QB is like what matters the mostand you guys have that lockdown,
yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.
Like in, you know, in a, in a country where like so many
people come up playing football and there's so much talent
coming through, you know, high schools and club teams and and
college that like even at the NFL level that like a great
quarterback, like like the the delta between like a pretty good
(13:44):
quarterback and a great quarterback.
It's so extreme. It's huge.
Right. Totally.
Wild. It's totally wild.
I I. Personally have a lot of
animosity for the Patriots because I'm a big Chargers fan
and every single you guys just completely like I think I'm a
big Philip Rivers fan and I don't think Philip Rivers ever
beat Tom Brady. It's like an insane stat.
It's like 10 to 0. And then that 2006 game, I was
(14:06):
only like 3 years old, so I obviously don't remember it, but
my family does and and the fumble and then you guys playing
the Bears in the Super Bowl and that would have been our first
Super Bowl win, I believe. So I'm I'm a little little.
Yeah, yeah. Sorry, not sorry.
It is what it is. He wins some, you lose some.
But I was in that same vein talking about young talents.
Obviously, you're one of the younger newcomers to Congress.
(14:29):
You came in 2023 under the new House Republican majority.
What was it like when being one of the newer members and, of
course, being one of the youngermembers in the caucus?
Yeah, I mean. It, it, it was a great
experience. Like I, I, you know, I was
pleasantly surprised, first of all, by how accessible older,
(14:50):
more experienced people in the caucus were and how generous
they've been with their time. Like, that's me.
I didn't fully expect to be honest with you.
Like you, you get to Congress. I wasn't one of these people who
like, I didn't have like any buzz around me like before I got
to Congress. Like there are some people who,
you know, like Max, Max Frost and people like that who were
famous before they got to Congress, who everybody in DC
(15:12):
knew who they were already. Like that wasn't me.
And I was, I was just like, pleasantly surprised that like,
yeah, you show up at work and you're like, oh, she's like
Nancy Pelosi. Like, you want to like have have
lunch sometime and like, tell meall your secrets.
And she's like, yeah, sure. And I was like, you know, like,
so there's like a real good culture of like mentorship in
(15:34):
the Democratic caucus, which is nice.
You know, particularly coming inthe leadership transition
happened during our orientation.And so, you know, literally
while we were at orientation, they like pulled us out of the,
the room where we were having our trainings and brought us up
to the House floor to watch Nancy give her a speech
announcing that she wasn't goingto be speaker anymore.
And then within like a week or two, Steny and Jim Clyburn had
(15:57):
done the same and the table was set for the new generation.
I've just felt like so lucky to be there at a time when the
younger generation was finally coming in, led by Hakim.
But like, all of this wisdom, like older wisdom is still
around. Like Nancy and Steny and Jim all
stayed in Congress, which was amazing.
And so being able to like, take advantage of like, both of those
(16:19):
things, like being part of like generational turnover, but also
having access to like, that wisdom from the older members
was really cool. And then, yeah, like I, I kind
of expected that like coming in,I would be like one of the
youngest ones. But we have a really young
class, right? Like between Max and Robert
Garcia and Greg Kassar, Marie Morgan Mcgarvey, like Delia,
(16:42):
like I'm not one of the I'm not.I was 39 when I started and I
was not one of the youngest oneseven.
And so, you know, that was cool too.
And, you know, I hope that that energy will lead us to the
majority soon. That it was it was a really it
was a really cool way to come in.
Awesome. Well, getting into the, into a
little more specific politics ofit all, I feel like part of
(17:06):
Trump's success is that he's convinced a lot of people that
everyone is corrupt. So whenever he's accused of
something, it's very easy for people to go like, well, I mean,
he's a politician. Of course, they all do XY and Z.
And so I'm wondering, you've called for banning stock trading
among congressional representatives and a few other
anti corruption bills. Do you feel like that's a viable
(17:27):
path of, like, if we could get voters to kind of trust the
average politician slightly more, it would make the outliers
like Trump more vulnerable to actually, like, being held
accountable? Yeah.
Absolutely. Like, and I think you absolutely
nailed it, right. Like first of all, Donald
Trump's corruption is so next level that like it, people
(17:48):
almost cancel it out because it's just so blatant.
I mean, like, in the first term,he literally ran a hotel down
the street from the White House where foreign governments and
corporations I was with, like, book rooms.
Yeah, the Saudis. Gave him like 200 like million.
It was with some some Saudis. Who who knows who else?
(18:08):
And like now, four years later like that, that's probably like
the most blatant grift of any president in history.
But now, four years later, that looks like small pedos, right?
Because now he's take Melania gets $40 million from Jeff Bezos
for her documentary. Eric Trump and Don Junior are
running around the world inking business deals with every
(18:29):
government, foreign government, they can find Crypto.
Scam. I mean turning himself into one
of the richest men in on earth overnight.
I have. I mean, I have plenty of friends
who are Republicans who support Trump and like, even to them the
crypto scam is like bonkers a little.
Too far, yeah. And then the one that also just
blows my mind is like, OK, thereare ethics rules.
(18:50):
Like presidents and, and membersof the executive branch are not
supposed to accept gifts. Like not except supposed to.
Like you're not supposed to be able to buy their dinner or
whatever. Donald Trump figured out you
could just sue anyone and settlewith them and they will give you
10s of millions of dollars. And like he's done that now with
Paramount. He's done it with.
(19:10):
ABC. NBC, that's our face.
Meta, right, Same thing, yeah. Facebook, he actually just did
it with Musk. Musk just gave him $10 million
as part of like a legal settlement.
Like the blatant, blatant corruption right in front of our
faces is just so next level. But you're absolutely right that
part of why he's able to get away with that, besides just
flooding the zone so much, is that people do believe that all
(19:32):
politicians are corrupt. And they really believe that,
like, every politician gets richoff of their job.
In reality, most of the time that's not true, but we've got
to re earn people's trust by supporting real ethics laws and
by calling out people who do do the wrong thing and like kicking
them out right. And so yeah, I when I so for me,
(19:55):
like banning members of Congressfrom trading stocks is a big
one. They're, they're actually like
when you're in Congress, we havepretty tough ethics rules about
a lot of things, like very tightlimits on outside income, like
if I wanted to like. Get a job bartending on the
side. Like I'm not allowed to do that.
Like like they're very strict limits on income outside our
(20:16):
salary. I think you're allowed to like
you're allowed to make money if you sell a book, but not off of
an advance. Like it's like very few
exceptions. But the stock trading is, is a
real thing and people do it. And like members of Congress
have access to all kinds of inside information, what might
be going into a bill or not going into a bill that could
regulate or deregulate an industry.
(20:38):
And for members of commerce to be able to like then go and
frayed off of that inside knowledge is just insane and
wrong and needs to be stopped. So this was something I actually
campaigned on. I actually ran ATV ad about this
because I felt so passionately about it and I campaigned on it
in 20/22. It was the first bill that I
signed on to Co sponsor when I got to Congress.
(20:59):
It was being led by Abigail spamburger at the time when Abigail
retired from the house, I asked her if I could pick it up from
her and she said yes. And so I'm leading it now with
ship Roy, a Republican from Texas, you know, big freedom
caucus Republican. So it's an interesting team of
rivals that we've put together and I'm hopeful that we can get
(21:21):
it done and prevent some bad acts from happening, but also
start to hopefully re earn people's trust.
And and to your point, like breakdown this permission
structure that Trump has to justbe blatantly corrupt and take
bribes. I hope we can get it done.
I think we can. It's a bipartisan bill.
(21:41):
We're getting a lot of momentum.We've got a little bit of
strategizing we've got to do to figure out the path.
But I think, I think we've got some good options.
I was gonna say, I mean, that's a really good, I mean, well,
one, very heartening to hear. But you know, you came in in
2023 and there was obviously thevery famous Representative
Santos now expelled incidents. But one, I want to ask you a
little bit about that, if you just have any insights on that.
(22:01):
And and two, I just got to say, I mean, one, good to hear that,
you know, we're pushing back on some of these corruption
measures. But I mean, one, how the hell
did that sneak through? Two, I got to say when he was
finally expelled, it was a greattime because every time I'd give
a little tour on the hill, I'd point a little picture of it's
like 100 target 80 that I point to his picture and be like, oh,
and that's Dos Santos. He's gone now.
But if you can shine some light on that, if you have any
(22:21):
insights. And I don't have any special
insights really. I mean, I, I scandals about him
started to come to light during our orientation.
So it was after he'd been elected, but before we were
actually sworn in. And so I hadn't actually met him
yet when the news broke that like, you know, I mean, all of
it, right? He had lied about his jobs, his
(22:42):
wealth, his income, his family not being in the Holocaust,
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And so he was sort of
radioactive like from day one. And I just sort of made the
decision that like I wasn't going to treat it like a joke
and I wasn't going to treat him as like this, like, you know,
(23:03):
lovable scamp, like, you know, troublemaker like because like
what he was doing was serious. Like, you know, he particularly
like some of the financial crimes that he was accused of
had real victims and and yeah, and I just felt like it
cheapened the institution. And so like, there are some
people who like, thought it was fun to like try to be buddy
buddy with him. And I'm not going to name names,
(23:24):
but like, I was just like, now I'm not going to do that.
And like, our offices were near each other.
So I saw him all the time. Like he was up along with
cafeteria all the time. But like, I never really engaged
with them personally I think. That he still comes back to
Congress. I think he was at like one of
the one of the events in like a congressional office a couple
couple weeks ago. I don't know what it was.
Yeah, he he shows. Up to stuff every once in a
(23:45):
while and like because he sells floor privileges, like all
former members still have floor privileges and gym privileges
actually. But my only like my only like
little like Santos nugget, I guess that I think about it is
so there were two votes to expelhim.
The first one failed and then the second one succeeded.
And I actually voted not to expel him the first time because
it was just before the Ethics Committee had, like, done their
(24:09):
report on him. It was before he had been
convicted of anything. And like, we all knew he was
dirty. Like, you could just tell that
the public reporting was so bad.But like, the night before, I,
like, had this moment where I was like, but, you know, like,
we still believe in due process.The ethics report hasn't come
out with their committee hasn't come out with their report yet.
He hasn't been convicted of anything yet.
Like, he deserves a chance to make his case.
(24:29):
And I walked into the chamber that day.
I didn't tell anyone except for my chief.
I walked in convinced I would bethe only Democrat to vote no.
Like I really thought because, like, there was just so much
momentum to to get rid of them. And there ended up actually
being like 30 or so Democrats, including some like very
principled progressive people like Jamie Raskin, who had
(24:51):
independently come to the same conclusion as me.
So I was like that. That was like an early moment
for me where I was like pretty proud of myself for trusting my
instinct. And then of course, subsequently
the Ethics Committee did come out with their report and it was
predictably damning. And then all of us, including
me, voted to expel him, you know, a couple months later.
But that was like a good confidence building moment for
(25:12):
me, I think. I'm just curious, you talk about
the relationship like between some of these like high profile
members. A lot of people will compare
sometimes politics to like pro wrestling.
I don't know how true that is. But they'll say like, oh, and
then when they get behind closeddoors, they they break kayfabe
and they're they're all besties.And like, that's probably not
true and an extreme version of it.
But I am curious like some of these people who are very high
(25:33):
profile, especially the Republicans who go on TV, say
crazy things and kind of want toget time on TV, are a lot of
them like more normal than you'dexpect in person.
And it's kind of jarring to see them kind of out of the the mode
of politics or they are just consistent well.
Most of them are, are terrible in real life too, but not all.
Like, like I, I, I don't, I don't want to name names because
(25:55):
I'm like, after one day when I'mnot in Congress anymore, I
definitely will. I definitely will name names.
But like, no, I would say like some of the most prominent, like
reviled Republicans, like the ones who just seem obnoxious on
TV, A lot of them are actually that obnoxious in person too.
You know, when no one's around. There's one from Georgia in
particular who I I'm not afraid to name who like I heard she's.
(26:17):
Really strong though. I heard she's in the gym I mean.
Like, I mean, she she's got she does CrossFit, like not not our
class usually, but like she doesCrossFit and like she's, you
know, serious about that. But like no, but like she's like
mean in real life when there aren't any cameras on and you're
just like, why? Like why are you like this?
But like, that's not, not everyone is.
(26:39):
And so like, I bring up like thestock trading bill and the Chip
Roy example, he's actually greatto work with and he's one of the
most conservative members of theHouse.
And like, I disagree with him onalmost everything.
But like, he's at least someone for whom like, I don't think
that he is in it because he wants to be famous the way some
of the others do. Like I think he has principles
(27:00):
that he believes in that he wants to debate and fight for
and push for. And sometimes those principles
are things that I very much disagree with.
Sometimes, like the stock trading ban and other ethics
stuff, we align and, and you know, and he's just like a
friendly guy, you know, and someone that you can like sit
down with and not like want to bang your head against the
table. So like there are some people
(27:21):
like that, but it's a weird dynamic because like the Trump
stuff makes everything so weird.It's like, you know, I'll have
like a, a really good meeting with him about the stock bill or
something. And then the next day, he'll be
railing about abortion or whatever, and I'm like, come on,
man. Really.
Like. But, you know, that's the way.
But that's the way politics is supposed to be, right?
Yeah. So there are still some like
(27:43):
that. Yeah.
No, I, I think that's a we're, I'm taking a class right now.
Actually, we're covering like Congress and, and, and how just
how extreme members have gone interms of rhetoric, not just
policy, but just in terms of like rhetoric on the House
floor. So we saw like the video of Joe
Wilson. I I remember like seeing it a
couple years ago, but we watchedit in class last night and he
(28:03):
was, and my professor was like, yeah, this is Joe Wilson back in
the day screaming to Obama, you liar.
And then he showed us Biden say the Union address for that's
just normal. Now people are just like yelling
at each other during the state of the Union address, but I kind
of wanted to talk about, you know, briefly this last
election. I think it was a, it was
devastating for many of us. I know that, you know, I was, I,
I wasn't, you know, I, I was sadon Election Day when I wasn't,
(28:26):
you know, I wasn't crying guys, but it, it was, it was sad
because I think we, we, we, you know, we were hopeful in a
movement in a candidate and, and, and it just kind of all
went away from us. I think something that I'm, I'm
working on now is, and the reason why we kind of started
this podcast is to like, try to see if we can at least, you
know, have these conversations, right?
Like we're planning to invite conservatives on we're we're,
(28:49):
we're planning to invite people,you know, who may not agree with
us on every single issue, but atleast we can talk things out and
have an open dialogue. And I think that's something
that's been missing from the Democratic Party recently.
And if it may, and maybe you cancorrect me on that, but I feel
like we're too quick to judge and, and we're not open enough
to going on different platforms.Thank you for coming on our
platform. And something that I kind of
(29:10):
want you to discuss is like the fleet of just young men leaving
the party like that is and, and Biden, people forget Biden won
18 to 29 year olds, specificallyyoung men think about like 20
points, right? And Trump just won them.
That that's in Obama, yeah. So how, what do we do?
And, and it's not, and I it's not about talking at them.
I think we need to talk with them and, and actually see what
(29:32):
issues they care about. Yeah.
So I, I completely agree. And I think that what you guys
are doing with, with this show is like actually a, a part of
how we solve this because, you know, frankly, we weren't
communicating with young people and particularly young men in
the last cycle at all. And, and especially in the
online space. It's like you all have seen the
data. Like the data has come in like
(29:54):
among voters who get most of their news from television, from
newspapers like Kamala 1 solidlyand among those who get most of
their News Online, including through social media, Like we
got crushed. Like I always tell people like
the average age of an MSNBC viewer is 70.
(30:14):
The average age of a Fox News viewer is 69, and the average
age of an MTV viewer is 51. So like there is a whole segment
of people, you know, kind of up into their 40s who we just
weren't communicating with. And, and I think a lot of that
was self-inflicted, right? Like, I think a lot of Democrats
(30:36):
stayed away from parts of the Internet that they thought were
were cringy or controversial or,you know, not politically
correct enough or whatever. And that was to our detriment.
And so one of the things I've been telling my colleagues in
Congress is like, look, we talk about how important it is to
show up and talk to voters wherethey are.
(30:57):
And like, for Democrats historically, going to voters
where they are has meant union halls and VFW's and senior
centers. Like we have to be just as
serious about showing them and talking to people where they are
in online spaces as well. And so through social media,
through YouTube, through podcasts, not just political
programming, but lifestyle programming, right, health and,
(31:18):
and sports and all the rest, entertainment and, and talk
about people there. Yes, like people say cringy shit
sometimes, but like you go to a a union hall or a VFW, people
say cringy shit there they say. Crazy shit there too.
And we still show up, right? And we make our case and people
appreciate that. We show up and we listen.
And and so we win in those places, right?
(31:38):
And it's, and so it's the same exact thing.
And so, yeah, like I think 1 of.So one part of the problem is
particularly in some of these online spaces, not showing up
where people, particularly youngmen are is something that has
hurt us because they're just nothearing our message.
And then the second part, which I think you alluded to, is when
(31:59):
you don't show up, not only do people not hear you, but you
don't hear them exactly. Yeah.
And like that two way communication is really, really
important. And we as a party allowed
ourselves to get so siloed wherewe were only talking to each
other that you like, you don't become as effective a debater,
you don't have policy that's as thoughtful, you're not as
(32:20):
responsive to constituents if you're only talking with like
minded people. And one of the things I'm trying
to get better at is thinking about social media and online
engagement, not just about one way communication.
Like here's a list of all the events and meetings I had today,
but two way communication where I'm doing ask me anything's, I'm
(32:41):
doing stuff like this. Like I'm doing things where, you
know, I'm hearing from people and not just talking.
And I think as a party, we need to prioritize that again as
well. And the Republicans, they've had
a concerted strategy to do this for like 4 or five years now.
And so we've got some catching up to do and.
It used to be the opposite. That's the thing.
You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm only 22 years
old, but I, I like to watch a lot of old like political videos
(33:02):
on YouTube. And it was the Democratic Party
that was more in touch with people that were online, the
Democratic Party that was going places when, you know, when
Obama was the head of the ticketand talking to people that we
may not agree with, like him going and meeting Joe the
plumber in real life. Anyone that knows Joe, the yeah,
like that's a crazy thing. But I also wanted to ask you,
like Jon Stewart was talking to Leader Jeffries, I think 2 days
(33:22):
ago and he asked them, you know,is it a messaging problem only
or is there also a policy problem there?
And, and I kind of wanted to seewhat you think about that
because Jon Stewart brought up the idea of having our own, he
called it our own Project 2025. But having a list of policies,
even if it's like 4 to 5 policies that we support that we
will fight for like universal childcare, like like stock, you
(33:43):
know, you know, banning stock trading, having four to five
clear defined policies that we can run on and talk about.
So yes, absolutely. Like you need to have an agenda,
like people need to know what you stand for and it needs to be
an agenda that is compelling to people and also is something
that the other side is not willing to offer.
So yes, 100%. Like the first step to doing
that is listening. And I think part of, you know,
(34:04):
if you talk to some of my colleagues who have been like,
the most successful winning in red districts, you know, if you
talk to Jerry Golden, Marie Perez, Josh Harder, people like
that, they'll tell you that a lot of times the issues that
they campaign on are issues that, like, neither party is
talking about, like, right to repair, like the ability to fix
your own stuff, you know, stuff like that.
(34:28):
But Mary Peltola, even though she lost last time, she
outperformed Harris by like, almost 10 points.
Yeah, a whole section of her platform was stuff having to do
with fish that like nobody in the lower 48 states had any idea
what she was talking about. But her her voters did.
Right. And so like, again, like part of
it I think is to just like we got to do some listening and
(34:48):
thinking about like, what are the what are the real stresses
that people are feeling in theirlives and and how do we address
them? Great.
Point But going back to people who get their news from the
Internet in the last election going much more to the right
versus people who get their newsfrom TV and newspapers.
I feel like part of that beyond just like not going on the shows
and not appearing. I almost feel like an even
(35:08):
bigger part of that is that Democrats to me seem to not
understand the types of things that actually breakthrough to
young people online. The types of things that get
picked up by these like sort of apolitical news accounts, the
rap TV's of the world and get posted on there.
And then that this one infographic that has like 10
words on it, I think becomes a lot of people's like image of
(35:31):
the party for like the next month just from seeing that one
post. And I remember no shade to Chuck
Schumer, love Chuck Schumer. But I remember, I think it was
last year, I was in my dorm. I was in my apartment with a
couple of roommates and like I was watching a Warriors game or
something. But I overheard them that Chuck
Schumer had gone on the Senate floor and held up a Zen
container and said that we need to ban Zen.
And it was never going to pass ever.
(35:53):
And it hasn't passed. And it was obvious it wasn't
going to pass. But I remember that they one of
my friends turned to the other one.
He said, did you see Democrats are trying to ban Zins?
And it was because it got postedon a rap TV account with him
holding a zinc container and a big old headline that said,
like, Democrats introduces bill to ban Zins.
And like, I feel like Democrats can take advantage of that.
(36:13):
Like I do think like the stock trading bill, that's something
that can kind of go the other way online.
Amongst young people, yeah. And, and it's become a bit of a
meme that like you can make so much money if you just sign up
to do the exact same stock trades as your congressperson or
whatever. So I'm wondering, like, do you
feel like Democrats can do a better job of like, finding
these issues that are kind of flashy and sexy to young people
(36:34):
and like breakthrough in a way that, like, it seems like
Republicans have been able to. Yeah, I think so.
And again, like it's it just kind of comes back to the the
principle of like the best politicians are not the best
talkers, they're the best listeners.
So you know, like I I love to hear from you guys from others,
like what what you think some ofthose those issues are.
It's definitely not banning Zen like that's I had I this shows
(36:56):
you maybe that I'm into as well.I had not seen that Schumer had
done that. And that does not seem
politically smart to me or or even policy smart.
But, you know, I think like there's also just something to
like people want to feel agency in their lives.
Like they want to feel like theyhave control over their own
life. And so they don't love the idea
of government controlling everything, but like they don't
like the idea of big corporations controlling
(37:16):
everything either. And that's why I think things
like rights repair, things like having, you know, sort of a, an
economic frame around antitrust and more choice and more options
for consumers, more transparencyabout what you're buying like
could also be helpful. But but yeah, no, I think we, I
(37:37):
think we got to do some deep thinking about that for sure.
Well, as I'm saying, the vein ofdeep thinking, I know it's very
early. It's only like what, two months
in 2025? Looking forward to 2026.
I keep thinking a lot about 2006and you know, all the other
midterms, you know, 2010, 2014 and whatnot.
We're. We're now in the minority,
(37:58):
right? We're going to be going on the
offensive trying to take back the house.
You know, we came close. I got to say shout out to George
Whitesides. And that's my my home district,
California came. Through California.
Came through. That's right, we came.
Through but looking forward to the Smithson's right And you
know, obviously we're all talking about all these changes
we got to make and reaching young people and going where
they are. I like the idea of that that
(38:18):
national plan. You know, blade had shown me
something where it was like, oh,raise the minimum wage and a
couple other things which were great.
The universal pre Ki think. Simple things.
It's all good stuff, but you know, I think another topic you
touched on with Patola was hand tailoring it to your district.
And so looking forward to 2026, right?
When thinking about expanding your house majority, especially
in red districts, how do you seethe role of like, especially,
(38:41):
you know, blue Dogs or more conservative members or people
who actually understand their district and kind of starting to
break with this like ideological, Hey, everyone has
to be right here. It's like, if we want to win,
you know, rural Oklahoma, we're going to be campaigning on
different stuff than in, you know, suburban like San Diego.
So where do you see that happening?
And do you see like 2006 as kindof like a a blueprint?
Any thoughts? Yeah, for sure.
(39:02):
So, and, you know, look, I'm, I'm not a member of the Blue Dog
Caucus, but like, I really like what the new leadership of the
Blue Dogs is doing because it isplay based and, you know,
specific to the district. But also, you know, I think
they're trying to take it in a, in a direction where there's
sort of a little more economic populism than there used to be
in like the old school Blue Dogs.
Like, you know, like I remember thinking of like the old school
(39:23):
Blue Dogs in the 90s as basically being like the
Dixiecrats, right? Like, yeah, you know, just like,
yeah, like I should probably be careful what I say, but yeah,
like, basically being like the Dixiecrats and being like very
like retrograde and, and all of like their views and, and
conservative and whatnot. And, you know, I think what
(39:44):
Jared and Maria are trying to dowith the Blue Dogs is make it
like a little more populist and a little more like, like, yeah.
Like, we don't, we don't want too much government regulation,
but like, we also don't want bigcompanies running our lives
either. And like, we're fine with like,
taxing the billionaires if you can help pay down the debt and
give tax relief to the middle class.
And, and like, create sort of a counter to the Josh Hawley, JD
(40:06):
Vance version of populism where like, you know, there's like you
kind of break it up into quadrants, like.
The socially and fiscally liberals will always be
Democrats. The socially and fiscally
conservatives will always be Republicans.
There are far fewer socially liberal, fiscally conservative
people than you would think. Those people, like the David
(40:27):
Brooks is like the, you know, they tend to like, dominate the
media a lot. But like, there's actually not a
lot of people who are socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
There are a lot of people out there who are fiscally liberal
and socially conservative. I've been a ton over my
district. So my district, we haven't
talked about it much, but like, I even though it's Rhode Island,
I have a light blue district. Like Kamala got 52% of my
(40:51):
district. And yeah, it's like 5247.
And I got, so she won by 5246. She won by 6 in my district.
I won by 17. Damn, Seth.
Yeah. And like, and I've got a lot of
like people who fall into that fiscally liberal, socially more
moderate quadrant. And for whatever reason, as a
(41:13):
party, we were just like, Nope, like, don't want you as voters
for like the last decade. Like if you weren't with us all
the way on abortion, on guns, onwhatever, like, you're out.
And so there are the like, Republican populists, like the
Josh Hollies and JD Vance's. And they were like, like, sure,
(41:34):
you know, like we won't touch your Social Security, but like,
you're welcome here. I'll give you a good example.
Like I was, it's one of my townsin my district, Johnston, RI.
It's the most, they say it's themost Italian town in the
country. Per capita.
It's like 80 plus percent Italian.
Pauly D from Jersey Shore is from Johnston.
And I remember like years ago, before I was in Congress, there
(41:56):
was a rally at the Johnson Senior Center to save the
Affordable Care Act, to save Obamacare when Trump was trying
to overturn it. And I was there.
I wasn't speaking, but I was like there in the crowd.
And I was like next to this old lady.
And she was like, yeah, yeah, you know, save Obamacare, save
the Affordable Care Act, you know, for hour long rally, like
cheering, cheering. And then at the end, she turned
(42:17):
to me and she goes, but we're not going to give it to those
immigrants, right? And like, and obviously like, I
don't agree with that, but thereare a lot of people in that
space politically of like fiscally liberal and socially
more moderate. And I think what the Blue Dogs
are doing and sort of trying to create a space in the Democratic
Party for people who are with uson most things but not with us
(42:38):
on everything and doing it in a place based way is really
valuable. I'm optimistic about the
midterms. I mean, because Trump will
overreach, he will make mistakesmore and more more.
President Musk will overreach and make mistakes, President.
Musk is already over. President Musk laid off 1000 VA
employees today at like VA hospitals.
You come after that. Are we going to?
(42:59):
Start running ads on that, like just blasting.
You know, they just fired three.They also fired today.
They fired 1000 people at the VAhospitals.
They fired 3000 people in the USForestry Service who worked to
prevent wildfires. They, they fired almost 20% of
the staff of the, the agency that protects our nuclear
(43:19):
weapons, like stupid, stupid stuff that like Elon and his
minions are doing. So like I, I think, and I trust,
you know, Hakeem in our leadership, I do think we will
come out with a proactive policyvision that will appeal to
people as well. But like, you know, I, I feel
good about it, but we got to work hard and we got to
anticipate that, you know, Elon and crew are going to do
(43:41):
everything they can to try to stop us.
But I'll give House Democrats a pat on the back real quick.
I mean, I think if you had told any one of us before the
election that Kamala was going to lose the popular vote by 2
million votes, we would have thought we're on our way to
losing 20 seats. And we actually gained 1.
So we're doing, you know, a lot of things, right, I think in
terms of candidate quality in the House Democratic Caucus and
(44:06):
the D, triple C So, yeah, I think that'll continue.
Seth, real quick, I think you brought up like a great point
about running in these conservative districts and, and
the old mentality of the Blue Dogs was you need to be
conservative on every single issue.
But when you go to these rural district, they also rely on
Medicare, Medicaid, right? They like their Social Security.
(44:28):
They also want to raise taxes onthe rich and provide more
services for their kids. So, and I think you, you, it's
what they're doing now is, is a lot better than what the blue
Dogs were doing in the past. But like understanding that,
like that populist economic message resonates with a lot of
people, like the amount of conservative family members I
have that would send me like Luigi memes, whatever you think
about Luigi, right? Like there is anger towards
(44:50):
health insurance companies and, and obviously what he did was
now we obviously not right, but there is anger towards these
institutions, these corporationsand, and you need to like go in
there and captivate that anger and talk about it.
And it's interesting because I knew like very Republican people
are like, yeah, these health insurance companies are scamming
us, you know, and RFK is going to fix it.
I'm like, OK, he's not going to fix it, but you understand the
(45:11):
problem. Yeah, totally, totally, totally.
I mean, I think that again, there's a lot of people,
particularly in rural areas, whoare just mistrustful of any
large institution, whether it's a government or a big
corporation or a billionaire. Like a lot of people are just
mistrustful of, of all of that and want to see some checks and
(45:32):
want to see some controls. And like, you know, people feel
stuck, right? Like people feel stuck.
And so hacks and billionaires topay for better schools and
cleaner water and better healthcare.
The core there is very popular and, and we should lean into it.
But like, if someone isn't quiteall the way there with us on on
some other issue like that should not be disqualifying, you
(45:54):
know, for for us to welcome theminto the fold.
There's been a lot of discourse after the election about I think
a lot of people agree with everything we're saying and how
like some districts need to run on different issues or be a
little more conservative on someissues.
But there's been a lot of discourse about the the quote UN
quote groups and how a lot of Democrats and people who work in
Democratic politics, they're afraid of even if it might make
(46:16):
electoral sense to do this, thatit'll cause some backlash.
A group will give a quote to TheNew York Times that it calls
them some word that's going to be tainted with their career now
or they feel like after after working in Congress, they won't
be able to get a job now or whatever.
They're somehow afraid of the groups, whether warranted or
not. And do you feel like that's
something that, like, Democrats are starting to realize, like,
(46:37):
they don't need to listen to some of these groups when
they're claiming to be representative of parts of the
coalition and maybe aren't and don't need to take like,
unpopular stances? Do you feel like there's like
momentum on that side of the issue and we might be learning
our lessons from this election? Yeah, I think to an extent, and
it depends on the issue, but I think to an extent, you know, I,
(46:59):
even though I'm relatively new to Congress, I've been in
politics for 10 years because I was state treasurer before.
And like, I'm very comfortable now with the idea that, like,
you can't make everyone happy all the time.
And like, yes, that can create uncomfortable conversations.
And you could have some lifelongfriends who are very passionate
about one thing or another who are going to like you less.
But like, that's just like that's the life we choose being
(47:21):
in this business. And so, you know, I'm OK with
that. I think some of our other
colleagues are working on finding that coverage, that
courage and, and hopefully they'll find it.
But it's not just the members themselves.
I think a lot of times it's the Staffs also, as you all know,
because some of you have interred in Congress and worked
in Congress, like the pace is very frenetic and especially the
minority, you don't always have a lot of time to get up to speed
(47:43):
on an issue before a vote or a hearing.
And, and that's where the groups, quote, UN quote, have a
lot of their influence is, you know, a member and their Staffs
are like, we got 24 hours to figure out where we are on this
very complicated bill that we just found out we're voting on
yesterday. How can we figure this out?
Like, oh, here's the group who can come and explain it to us.
(48:05):
And I, I think something that weas like members and, and our
Staffs need to be better about is trying to like still rely on
people with expertise, but like expertise that, you know,
doesn't just come from one side of an issue, but like trying to
get like a more holistic group of groups to give us feedback
before we make a decision. I think that's something that we
can work on also. Yeah, yeah.
(48:27):
I think that that's a good way to look at it, just getting
different perspectives and we doappreciate your time Before we
do like, like you, I know you talked a lot about, you know,
stock trading, What are some other policies and issues you
care about and looking to make an impact on and, and where can
our viewers find you? And, and I know you're on all
the social media platforms, so we'll make sure to link that.
Yeah, So my aside from the stocktrading ban, my other big bill
(48:51):
that I'm getting ready to reintroduce is vacation for
everyone. So 1010 days of vacation per
year. I feel very passionate about
this. We like Americans like we work
hard. We have such like a grinded out
culture. And part of, like, empowering
working people is allowing working people to, like, enjoy
(49:12):
the food of their labor. 26,000,000 Americans do not get
any paid time off from work at all.
Like, which means that anytime they get a flat tire or their
kid is sick or something happens, they have to decide
between either not getting a paycheck at all or risk losing
their job or whatever. And so every country in Europe
(49:34):
guarantees, by the way, at least20 days.
And some countries give 30 days of paid vacation every year.
So my bill would be 10, 10 days of paid vacation for all
workers. I think it's just very common
sense. It's overdue, it's popular.
And a lot of the discourse, I think sometimes this is where,
like, we as Democrats also shootourselves in the foot a little
(49:55):
bit. A lot of the discourse is about
paid parental leave or paid sickleave, which is also very
important. But like, you should be able to
get a day off even if you're nota parent and even if you're not
sick. Like you shouldn't necessarily
need a doctor's note every time you want to take a day off from
work. And so it's called the PTO Act,
the paid time off act. Check it out.
(50:15):
We it was, of all the bills I introduced in the last Congress,
it was the one that I think had the most Co sponsors in the most
early traction. So obviously not going anywhere
under Republican control becauseRepublicans don't actually care
about workers. But I'm hopeful that when we get
the majority back that this can be part of the agenda.
Love. That I think that's like such a
cool policy that most people yeah, I mean, I I got to think
(50:37):
about my parents grew up workingall my life and they never
really got like vacation time soI didn't think about that until
now I. Also think that's what I was
talking about earlier. That's something that would
breakthrough, that would end up on the Instagram pages that
would. All the meme, all the pages.
Congressman wants to give you vacation time.
Yeah. Legal under vacation.
Yeah, exactly. No, I So yeah, I definitely want
(50:58):
to make a big push on that one. Also to say I mean.
That's a great one to hear, Congressman.
I gotta say, that's a really great bill.
I was just, I mean, it was stilllike taking a second to process
it. But other than that, we're going
to go ahead and let you go. We don't want to keep you
hostage much longer, but we wantto thank you so much for coming
on Progressives today. Is there anything you'd like to
leave our viewers a couple seconds for a direct message to
him? No, look, I I just say like to
everyone who's out there, like this is how we build back, like
(51:19):
stay engaged, have good conversations, question
everything and and lean in, don't lean out.
So like, I love what you guys are doing.
Thank you for doing it. Thanks for having me.
And yeah, let me know how I can be helpful with all of you going
forward as well. Thanks.
SO. Much, Congressman, It's been a
pleasure.
Well, good morning and welcome to the newest episode of
Progressive. I'm Orange and Juice
Representative Seth Magaziner asour newest guest.
Representative Magaziner, how are you?
How are you doing today? Great.
I'm great. Thank you for having me.
I'm a big fan of what you guys are doing.
I think it's awesome and happy to be here with you.
Glad to hear it. I was going to say it's truly an
honor. And I got to say like my heart's
still like a little warm not getting to call it a
(00:29):
representative like on a first name basis.
Like I say, it's kind of like a pipe dream.
But for all this, we don't know.Representative Magaziner is a
representative from Rhode Island's second Congressional
District. He's been serving since 2023.
Taking over for representative. I said Lang Langovan.
Am I saying that right? Yeah, Jim Langvan.
Jim Langvan, you had served as the 31st General Treasurer of
(00:50):
Rhode Island from 2015 till 2023when he came to join Congress.
So, Congressman, real quick, I want to open something up with
completely off what you're expecting.
I know you're a big fan of the House, Jim.
When Belay and I were interns, we went to the staff gym.
He was a big fan of it. I walked in immediately went,
Nope, not going to happen, too small.
But for you, you get to use the representative, Jim, the actual
members. Jim, how is it?
(01:11):
How's the milk Whitman? And who is the strongest House
Democrat? Well, it's a scene.
First of all, being a member of Congress is an honor.
It's it's an honor to get to do the job.
I love the job even in these like very challenging times, but
there aren't like a lot of traditional perks to the job.
And this is one of them is there's like an enormous gym in
the basement of one of the houseoffice buildings and it's only
for members and their Staffs. I'm sorry, members in there are
(01:34):
spouses. Excuse me.
So like it's never that crowded.And so as I understand, I've
never been to the staff gym, butas I understand it, that's the
problem with the staff gym is that like it's, it gets crowded.
I've been told. So the members gym is enormous.
It's like multi level. There's a pool, there's a not
quite full size basketball court.
There's like steam rooms and saunas that are like kind of
(01:56):
sketchy that I don't go into, but I don't I don't really
understand. And so it's enormous and there's
like lots of stuff, but it hasn't been updated since like
probably the Cold War. Like it, it's got like a very
60s kind of like feel to it. Like the machines are modern,
but like the walls, the floors, the showers, all it like it
feels like, I don't know, it feels like 1970s, nineteen 80s
(02:21):
era, like it hasn't been updatedsince then, I guess because they
just like can't justify spendingthe money on like upgrading the
House members gym and and yeah, and it's weird.
It's like one of the only, I would say, like truly bipartisan
social spaces in Congress. One of the things that was
surprising to me coming from Rhode Island, we're like, you
(02:42):
know, Rhode Island, we're a veryblue state, but we do have some
Republicans in the State House and like we all see each other
all the time. We all see each other at the
same bars all the time, the samerestaurants, whatever.
In Congress. It's not like that as much like
the social scene is very segregated by by party.
And so it's like one of the few places where you go and like
Republicans and Democrats are doing stuff together.
(03:02):
And like, frankly, that can be alittle, you know, like my
literally my first time I ever went into the house gym.
I got there, I was getting a tour and I went to the locker
room and like there was Jim Jordan wearing like only a
towel. And I was just like, I'm never.
I'm never going to Unsee that. And like, welcome to Congress.
Like here we are. You're welcome.
Yeah. Like which Democrats are like
(03:22):
the gym MVPS? I would say like Jimmy Panetta
is kind of a beast from California.
Josh Gottheimer is there a lot like those two probably stand
out and in like a different kindof way.
Like Mike Levin from California is like, wow.
Yeah. He's like always like in a
different way because he like he's not like he has a lift a
(03:45):
lot like Jimmy doesn't necessarily, but he's like on
the bike and he's like in reallygood like aerobic shape
California. Thing of him to do.
Totally, totally. He's like on the Peloton, like,
you know, for like hours a day, I think.
And then there's AI just starteddoing there's a morning CrossFit
class like early, early morning that I just finally got talked
(04:08):
into doing that's bipartisan andit's led by Mark Wayne Mullen,
which is, you know, the the senator from Oklahoma who you
know, is is pretty out there, but is.
He's a strong guy. He's a strong guy.
I think he I think he has some like MMA in his background and
stuff. Yeah, I think so.
(04:28):
Like that's when Democrats and Republicans like Josh does that
one Moulton, Steph Moulton does that a lot is actually Marie
Gluzan Camp Perez, who talked meinto going.
It's very, it's very intense andbut you know, it's a good way to
start the day before we start like the real battles in
Congress. I got to say you couldn't pay me
enough money to take a CrossFit class.
(04:50):
I I've been a personal trainer for the last 3 1/2 years at UC
Santa Barbara. And sometimes I watch CrossFit
videos just to like just to get my morning like a little, little
little hatred in my day, you know, start with my coffee.
But. Yeah, yeah.
And like, and like Mark Wayne Mullen, like I've, I've never
spoken to him outside of that class.
And like he's mean. Like he like if you're not
keeping up, like he's not like apatient, like he's not like a
(05:12):
patient leader of that group. He will like get in your base,
which it's not. I like that.
It's not for everybody, but whatever.
Interesting. I would say so.
So tell us a little bit more about the basketball court.
Do you guys ever play pick up? I would say, is that like the
congressional basketball games? Who's who's putting down these
triple double S? I've been trying to put a like
get a group together, but like there aren't, there aren't
(05:32):
enough people who are like really into it whose schedules
line up. There is a so there is a
congressional basketball game. It's not as well known or not as
big as the congressional baseball game.
Like congressional baseball games, obviously very historic
and huge and like 50,000 people go to Nat Stadium and it's on
TV. The basketball game is a lot
smaller and very much not on TV,but they do it once a year and I
(05:56):
did it last year and they weren't like on the Dems, like
for Dems. So Reggie Love still comes and
plays in that every year. You know, he was Obama's body
man back in the day and was a Duke basketball player.
Who else on the Dems side? Dan Goldman, Gabe Vasquez, Kevin
Mullen, More Republicans than Democrats, to be honest.
They do it the way they do it. It's a because they're just like
(06:19):
aren't enough of us who play? It's not Democrats versus
Republicans like the baseball game is.
It's members versus lobbyists. And the members historically get
one like NBA, like one ringer, like one NBA player on our team
because like, we're all old and out of shape.
But like the lobbyists, like a lot of them are like former
(06:39):
college players and stuff like who are good, like guys who
played like D1 basketball. And they would kick our asses if
if like we didn't have little helps.
Last year we had NS Freedom, NS Cantor Freedom, who, like he,
used to play. On your Celtics, Yeah.
Yeah, that's right. And so he was on our team and
(07:00):
like that made it kind of even it was not a we won, but only by
like a few points it. When is when is LeBron coming
out there? I mean I assume once he retires.
When he's the sitting senator from Ohio.
Yeah. Staying on the NBAI know you're
a big Boston Celtics fan. I'm curious, like what are your
(07:20):
thoughts on the season so far? What are your how are you
feeling about the potential repeat?
And I'm a big Warriors fans, we now kind of have your two
kryptonites. We got Curry and Jimmy Butler.
So I'm curious what what team are you most scared of in the
West? And how are you feeling about
your chances to repeat? It's a good question.
I mean, so first of all, like, Ifeel great about being a Celtics
fan right now. Like we're we're I think we're
(07:42):
the best team in the league. Going back-to-back is really
hard, right? Like going back-to-back is
really hard. And especially you think about
our core, you know, they played,you know, in the finals, so
they're playing into June. Then three of them went to the
Olympics and you know, Porzingiswas was recovering from an
injury. And so like, like a lot of the
(08:03):
core guys didn't get a lot of rest.
And so like, it's got to be likesuch a marathon for them.
Like just going all the way to the finals, playing 100 plus
games, then going to the Olympics, three of them, then
like right back into the season and being shorthanded at the
beginning of the season and and other guys having to play more.
So like, you know, honestly, like the fact that we're second
(08:24):
in the East right now at the AllStar break.
I feel great about like that's given all of that wear and tear,
like that's really good. So I feel good about it.
Like I'd rather, I think at thispoint it's mostly a game of
staying healthy and like I wouldrather be the second or third
seed healthy than the first seedbanged up.
And yeah, we'll see what happens.
And I'm like the West. I don't know.
(08:44):
I'm. There's only one right answer,
Seth. We're supposed to say Oklahoma
City and like, they are scary, but like, I feel like, I feel
like Lucas got something to prove now, yes.
That's what we're looking for. And like what I was looking,
we're not, you know, amazing, but.
Rivalry. They love that Celtics Lakers
rivalry. I I don't know if the Lakers
(09:04):
quite are complete enough as a team but like that.
We're getting there. That'd be pretty cool.
When when that Lucca trade dropped, I was it was like 9:30
PM here in LA and I just instantly started screaming and
my roommate was a Clippers man. He's like, what happened?
What happened? I'm like, we got Luca.
He's like, no, it's one of thosefake accounts because Elon just
allows every fake account to be verified.
Now it's like it's one of those fake account, click on it.
(09:26):
He's like, my God, you guys got Luca.
Best night of my life. It was so good.
And then I called my friend who was a Celtics fan.
He's lives right down the street.
He's been a Celtics Celtics fan.He's from Panama, but he's a
huge Celtics fan because his dad's a Celtics fan.
And I just started yelling at him.
He goes, you're lying, bro. There's no way Luke is there.
I was like, yeah, he is. I'm like, he's like, bro, now we
(09:46):
have to. So he's he's he's, he's pissy
now because he really likes Lucaand, and I just, I just crap on
the Celtics all the time. But what's funny is my first, my
first year at UCLA, my roommates, I was a Lakers fan.
My roommate was a Celtics fan. My other roommate was a Warriors
fan. So our second year, I think the
the the, the Celtics and the andthe and the Warriors, that's
(10:07):
when they played in the Finals. And it was like just complete
like depression for my friend Louise, who's a Celtics fan.
And I was like, you know, I can't really talk and I can't
talk crap because the Lakers weren't that good that year.
But I mean, now you got to see them win and you guys go
back-to-back. You guys will get more of my
respect. But most of your rings do come
from the dinosaur age. I do got to say that.
(10:29):
Yeah. OK, does Minnesota rings count
then, boy. It's the franchise they should
count, right? I mean, they just move.
It's not their fault they have to move.
It's not the players fault. Yeah, I mean, again, like on the
on paper, like no doubt the sellers are the best team in the
league. I know I'm biased, but like no
doubt like that that top is. But like, you know, like
especially the way the game is played today, like it's just
(10:49):
hard to go a whole season back-to-back.
So we'll see. I'm hopeful.
I'm hopeful. We've seen bigger, bigger
miracles, I'm gonna say, in the same vein of it's not exactly,
well, not the same vein, but back-to-back.
Obviously last weekend was a Super Bowl.
What do you think about the Chiefs is getting, I mean, just
blown out? I mean, that was almost hard to
watch. What Any thoughts on that?
So, yeah, and I was like kind ofa contrarian here in New England
about this because a lot of people, you know, were rooting
(11:11):
for the Eagles because they, like, want it to be established
that, like, Brady is the GOAT, right?
And that, like, Mahomes is not. And.
And so there was like a big strain of that out here.
But I just like, Eagles fans arethe worst.
Like Philly fans in general are the.
They're pretty bad. Absolute worst, you know, I know
(11:31):
like people like, oh, New England, you suck to well, like
no, Philly fans are terrible. I can't root for the Eagles.
You know, Travis Kelsey seems like a good guy.
I don't like, I don't want to, you know, but I was, I was
hoping for a better game and I was hoping for better
commercials like week this year.Yeah, the commercials were
disappointing, right? I wasn't the only one thinking
about that. They're all like these.
(11:53):
They seem like they're just likeAI written like we'll just like
insert random celebrities and inspirational phrases.
And it's like, what are you evenselling?
Like, I don't, you know, are you?
A big Patriots fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, what do you think about the Patriots stadium?
Foxboro is actually closer to Providence than it is to Boston.
It's only like it's only like 20minutes from Providence and a
(12:15):
lot of the away teams actually stay in Providence when they're
here. Yeah, I mean.
How do you feel about Drake? May I think you guys found like
a a star in him and then Mike Vrabel.
Now I think I feel bad about what happened to, you know,
Mayo, But I mean, you got to move and when Vrabel is
available and Vrabel has that connection with the patriots.
So I I think that he could really do something.
Yeah, I mean, hope springs eternal, right?
(12:36):
We'll see. I mean, you know, people forget
like people just like New England teams like across all
major sports that like we just win everything for the last 20
plus years. But like like when I was a kid,
it didn't used to be like that. We had a long drought from like
Celtics in 86 to Patriots and like 01/02.
We had almost like A2 decade drought where like Patriots were
(13:00):
terrible, Celtics were terrible,Bruins and Red Sox would like be
OK every once in a while, but never like never make it.
And like so like, I don't know, like I think we're used to read
like we we do know what it's like to have to rebuild.
So I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful thatlike, you know, that we've got
enough young talent that we can we can turn things around, but
(13:21):
we'll see. I think the young.
QB is like what matters the mostand you guys have that lockdown,
yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.
Like in, you know, in a, in a country where like so many
people come up playing football and there's so much talent
coming through, you know, high schools and club teams and and
college that like even at the NFL level that like a great
quarterback, like like the the delta between like a pretty good
(13:44):
quarterback and a great quarterback.
It's so extreme. It's huge.
Right. Totally.
Wild. It's totally wild.
I I. Personally have a lot of
animosity for the Patriots because I'm a big Chargers fan
and every single you guys just completely like I think I'm a
big Philip Rivers fan and I don't think Philip Rivers ever
beat Tom Brady. It's like an insane stat.
It's like 10 to 0. And then that 2006 game, I was
(14:06):
only like 3 years old, so I obviously don't remember it, but
my family does and and the fumble and then you guys playing
the Bears in the Super Bowl and that would have been our first
Super Bowl win, I believe. So I'm I'm a little little.
Yeah, yeah. Sorry, not sorry.
It is what it is. He wins some, you lose some.
But I was in that same vein talking about young talents.
Obviously, you're one of the younger newcomers to Congress.
(14:29):
You came in 2023 under the new House Republican majority.
What was it like when being one of the newer members and, of
course, being one of the youngermembers in the caucus?
Yeah, I mean. It, it, it was a great
experience. Like I, I, you know, I was
pleasantly surprised, first of all, by how accessible older,
(14:50):
more experienced people in the caucus were and how generous
they've been with their time. Like, that's me.
I didn't fully expect to be honest with you.
Like you, you get to Congress. I wasn't one of these people who
like, I didn't have like any buzz around me like before I got
to Congress. Like there are some people who,
you know, like Max, Max Frost and people like that who were
famous before they got to Congress, who everybody in DC
(15:12):
knew who they were already. Like that wasn't me.
And I was, I was just like, pleasantly surprised that like,
yeah, you show up at work and you're like, oh, she's like
Nancy Pelosi. Like, you want to like have have
lunch sometime and like, tell meall your secrets.
And she's like, yeah, sure. And I was like, you know, like,
so there's like a real good culture of like mentorship in
(15:34):
the Democratic caucus, which is nice.
You know, particularly coming inthe leadership transition
happened during our orientation.And so, you know, literally
while we were at orientation, they like pulled us out of the,
the room where we were having our trainings and brought us up
to the House floor to watch Nancy give her a speech
announcing that she wasn't goingto be speaker anymore.
And then within like a week or two, Steny and Jim Clyburn had
(15:57):
done the same and the table was set for the new generation.
I've just felt like so lucky to be there at a time when the
younger generation was finally coming in, led by Hakim.
But like, all of this wisdom, like older wisdom is still
around. Like Nancy and Steny and Jim all
stayed in Congress, which was amazing.
And so being able to like, take advantage of like, both of those
(16:19):
things, like being part of like generational turnover, but also
having access to like, that wisdom from the older members
was really cool. And then, yeah, like I, I kind
of expected that like coming in,I would be like one of the
youngest ones. But we have a really young
class, right? Like between Max and Robert
Garcia and Greg Kassar, Marie Morgan Mcgarvey, like Delia,
(16:42):
like I'm not one of the I'm not.I was 39 when I started and I
was not one of the youngest oneseven.
And so, you know, that was cool too.
And, you know, I hope that that energy will lead us to the
majority soon. That it was it was a really it
was a really cool way to come in.
Awesome. Well, getting into the, into a
little more specific politics ofit all, I feel like part of
(17:06):
Trump's success is that he's convinced a lot of people that
everyone is corrupt. So whenever he's accused of
something, it's very easy for people to go like, well, I mean,
he's a politician. Of course, they all do XY and Z.
And so I'm wondering, you've called for banning stock trading
among congressional representatives and a few other
anti corruption bills. Do you feel like that's a viable
(17:27):
path of, like, if we could get voters to kind of trust the
average politician slightly more, it would make the outliers
like Trump more vulnerable to actually, like, being held
accountable? Yeah.
Absolutely. Like, and I think you absolutely
nailed it, right. Like first of all, Donald
Trump's corruption is so next level that like it, people
(17:48):
almost cancel it out because it's just so blatant.
I mean, like, in the first term,he literally ran a hotel down
the street from the White House where foreign governments and
corporations I was with, like, book rooms.
Yeah, the Saudis. Gave him like 200 like million.
It was with some some Saudis. Who who knows who else?
(18:08):
And like now, four years later like that, that's probably like
the most blatant grift of any president in history.
But now, four years later, that looks like small pedos, right?
Because now he's take Melania gets $40 million from Jeff Bezos
for her documentary. Eric Trump and Don Junior are
running around the world inking business deals with every
(18:29):
government, foreign government, they can find Crypto.
Scam. I mean turning himself into one
of the richest men in on earth overnight.
I have. I mean, I have plenty of friends
who are Republicans who support Trump and like, even to them the
crypto scam is like bonkers a little.
Too far, yeah. And then the one that also just
blows my mind is like, OK, thereare ethics rules.
(18:50):
Like presidents and, and membersof the executive branch are not
supposed to accept gifts. Like not except supposed to.
Like you're not supposed to be able to buy their dinner or
whatever. Donald Trump figured out you
could just sue anyone and settlewith them and they will give you
10s of millions of dollars. And like he's done that now with
Paramount. He's done it with.
(19:10):
ABC. NBC, that's our face.
Meta, right, Same thing, yeah. Facebook, he actually just did
it with Musk. Musk just gave him $10 million
as part of like a legal settlement.
Like the blatant, blatant corruption right in front of our
faces is just so next level. But you're absolutely right that
part of why he's able to get away with that, besides just
flooding the zone so much, is that people do believe that all
(19:32):
politicians are corrupt. And they really believe that,
like, every politician gets richoff of their job.
In reality, most of the time that's not true, but we've got
to re earn people's trust by supporting real ethics laws and
by calling out people who do do the wrong thing and like kicking
them out right. And so yeah, I when I so for me,
(19:55):
like banning members of Congressfrom trading stocks is a big
one. They're, they're actually like
when you're in Congress, we havepretty tough ethics rules about
a lot of things, like very tightlimits on outside income, like
if I wanted to like. Get a job bartending on the
side. Like I'm not allowed to do that.
Like like they're very strict limits on income outside our
(20:16):
salary. I think you're allowed to like
you're allowed to make money if you sell a book, but not off of
an advance. Like it's like very few
exceptions. But the stock trading is, is a
real thing and people do it. And like members of Congress
have access to all kinds of inside information, what might
be going into a bill or not going into a bill that could
regulate or deregulate an industry.
(20:38):
And for members of commerce to be able to like then go and
frayed off of that inside knowledge is just insane and
wrong and needs to be stopped. So this was something I actually
campaigned on. I actually ran ATV ad about this
because I felt so passionately about it and I campaigned on it
in 20/22. It was the first bill that I
signed on to Co sponsor when I got to Congress.
(20:59):
It was being led by Abigail spamburger at the time when Abigail
retired from the house, I asked her if I could pick it up from
her and she said yes. And so I'm leading it now with
ship Roy, a Republican from Texas, you know, big freedom
caucus Republican. So it's an interesting team of
rivals that we've put together and I'm hopeful that we can get
(21:21):
it done and prevent some bad acts from happening, but also
start to hopefully re earn people's trust.
And and to your point, like breakdown this permission
structure that Trump has to justbe blatantly corrupt and take
bribes. I hope we can get it done.
I think we can. It's a bipartisan bill.
(21:41):
We're getting a lot of momentum.We've got a little bit of
strategizing we've got to do to figure out the path.
But I think, I think we've got some good options.
I was gonna say, I mean, that's a really good, I mean, well,
one, very heartening to hear. But you know, you came in in
2023 and there was obviously thevery famous Representative
Santos now expelled incidents. But one, I want to ask you a
little bit about that, if you just have any insights on that.
(22:01):
And and two, I just got to say, I mean, one, good to hear that,
you know, we're pushing back on some of these corruption
measures. But I mean, one, how the hell
did that sneak through? Two, I got to say when he was
finally expelled, it was a greattime because every time I'd give
a little tour on the hill, I'd point a little picture of it's
like 100 target 80 that I point to his picture and be like, oh,
and that's Dos Santos. He's gone now.
But if you can shine some light on that, if you have any
(22:21):
insights. And I don't have any special
insights really. I mean, I, I scandals about him
started to come to light during our orientation.
So it was after he'd been elected, but before we were
actually sworn in. And so I hadn't actually met him
yet when the news broke that like, you know, I mean, all of
it, right? He had lied about his jobs, his
(22:42):
wealth, his income, his family not being in the Holocaust,
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And so he was sort of
radioactive like from day one. And I just sort of made the
decision that like I wasn't going to treat it like a joke
and I wasn't going to treat him as like this, like, you know,
(23:03):
lovable scamp, like, you know, troublemaker like because like
what he was doing was serious. Like, you know, he particularly
like some of the financial crimes that he was accused of
had real victims and and yeah, and I just felt like it
cheapened the institution. And so like, there are some
people who like, thought it was fun to like try to be buddy
buddy with him. And I'm not going to name names,
(23:24):
but like, I was just like, now I'm not going to do that.
And like, our offices were near each other.
So I saw him all the time. Like he was up along with
cafeteria all the time. But like, I never really engaged
with them personally I think. That he still comes back to
Congress. I think he was at like one of
the one of the events in like a congressional office a couple
couple weeks ago. I don't know what it was.
Yeah, he he shows. Up to stuff every once in a
(23:45):
while and like because he sells floor privileges, like all
former members still have floor privileges and gym privileges
actually. But my only like my only like
little like Santos nugget, I guess that I think about it is
so there were two votes to expelhim.
The first one failed and then the second one succeeded.
And I actually voted not to expel him the first time because
it was just before the Ethics Committee had, like, done their
(24:09):
report on him. It was before he had been
convicted of anything. And like, we all knew he was
dirty. Like, you could just tell that
the public reporting was so bad.But like, the night before, I,
like, had this moment where I was like, but, you know, like,
we still believe in due process.The ethics report hasn't come
out with their committee hasn't come out with their report yet.
He hasn't been convicted of anything yet.
Like, he deserves a chance to make his case.
(24:29):
And I walked into the chamber that day.
I didn't tell anyone except for my chief.
I walked in convinced I would bethe only Democrat to vote no.
Like I really thought because, like, there was just so much
momentum to to get rid of them. And there ended up actually
being like 30 or so Democrats, including some like very
principled progressive people like Jamie Raskin, who had
(24:51):
independently come to the same conclusion as me.
So I was like that. That was like an early moment
for me where I was like pretty proud of myself for trusting my
instinct. And then of course, subsequently
the Ethics Committee did come out with their report and it was
predictably damning. And then all of us, including
me, voted to expel him, you know, a couple months later.
But that was like a good confidence building moment for
(25:12):
me, I think. I'm just curious, you talk about
the relationship like between some of these like high profile
members. A lot of people will compare
sometimes politics to like pro wrestling.
I don't know how true that is. But they'll say like, oh, and
then when they get behind closeddoors, they they break kayfabe
and they're they're all besties.And like, that's probably not
true and an extreme version of it.
But I am curious like some of these people who are very high
(25:33):
profile, especially the Republicans who go on TV, say
crazy things and kind of want toget time on TV, are a lot of
them like more normal than you'dexpect in person.
And it's kind of jarring to see them kind of out of the the mode
of politics or they are just consistent well.
Most of them are, are terrible in real life too, but not all.
Like, like I, I, I don't, I don't want to name names because
(25:55):
I'm like, after one day when I'mnot in Congress anymore, I
definitely will. I definitely will name names.
But like, no, I would say like some of the most prominent, like
reviled Republicans, like the ones who just seem obnoxious on
TV, A lot of them are actually that obnoxious in person too.
You know, when no one's around. There's one from Georgia in
particular who I I'm not afraid to name who like I heard she's.
(26:17):
Really strong though. I heard she's in the gym I mean.
Like, I mean, she she's got she does CrossFit, like not not our
class usually, but like she doesCrossFit and like she's, you
know, serious about that. But like no, but like she's like
mean in real life when there aren't any cameras on and you're
just like, why? Like why are you like this?
But like, that's not, not everyone is.
(26:39):
And so like, I bring up like thestock trading bill and the Chip
Roy example, he's actually greatto work with and he's one of the
most conservative members of theHouse.
And like, I disagree with him onalmost everything.
But like, he's at least someone for whom like, I don't think
that he is in it because he wants to be famous the way some
of the others do. Like I think he has principles
(27:00):
that he believes in that he wants to debate and fight for
and push for. And sometimes those principles
are things that I very much disagree with.
Sometimes, like the stock trading ban and other ethics
stuff, we align and, and you know, and he's just like a
friendly guy, you know, and someone that you can like sit
down with and not like want to bang your head against the
table. So like there are some people
(27:21):
like that, but it's a weird dynamic because like the Trump
stuff makes everything so weird.It's like, you know, I'll have
like a, a really good meeting with him about the stock bill or
something. And then the next day, he'll be
railing about abortion or whatever, and I'm like, come on,
man. Really.
Like. But, you know, that's the way.
But that's the way politics is supposed to be, right?
Yeah. So there are still some like
(27:43):
that. Yeah.
No, I, I think that's a we're, I'm taking a class right now.
Actually, we're covering like Congress and, and, and how just
how extreme members have gone interms of rhetoric, not just
policy, but just in terms of like rhetoric on the House
floor. So we saw like the video of Joe
Wilson. I I remember like seeing it a
couple years ago, but we watchedit in class last night and he
(28:03):
was, and my professor was like, yeah, this is Joe Wilson back in
the day screaming to Obama, you liar.
And then he showed us Biden say the Union address for that's
just normal. Now people are just like yelling
at each other during the state of the Union address, but I kind
of wanted to talk about, you know, briefly this last
election. I think it was a, it was
devastating for many of us. I know that, you know, I was, I,
I wasn't, you know, I, I was sadon Election Day when I wasn't,
(28:26):
you know, I wasn't crying guys, but it, it was, it was sad
because I think we, we, we, you know, we were hopeful in a
movement in a candidate and, and, and it just kind of all
went away from us. I think something that I'm, I'm
working on now is, and the reason why we kind of started
this podcast is to like, try to see if we can at least, you
know, have these conversations, right?
Like we're planning to invite conservatives on we're we're,
(28:49):
we're planning to invite people,you know, who may not agree with
us on every single issue, but atleast we can talk things out and
have an open dialogue. And I think that's something
that's been missing from the Democratic Party recently.
And if it may, and maybe you cancorrect me on that, but I feel
like we're too quick to judge and, and we're not open enough
to going on different platforms.Thank you for coming on our
platform. And something that I kind of
(29:10):
want you to discuss is like the fleet of just young men leaving
the party like that is and, and Biden, people forget Biden won
18 to 29 year olds, specificallyyoung men think about like 20
points, right? And Trump just won them.
That that's in Obama, yeah. So how, what do we do?
And, and it's not, and I it's not about talking at them.
I think we need to talk with them and, and actually see what
(29:32):
issues they care about. Yeah.
So I, I completely agree. And I think that what you guys
are doing with, with this show is like actually a, a part of
how we solve this because, you know, frankly, we weren't
communicating with young people and particularly young men in
the last cycle at all. And, and especially in the
online space. It's like you all have seen the
data. Like the data has come in like
(29:54):
among voters who get most of their news from television, from
newspapers like Kamala 1 solidlyand among those who get most of
their News Online, including through social media, Like we
got crushed. Like I always tell people like
the average age of an MSNBC viewer is 70.
(30:14):
The average age of a Fox News viewer is 69, and the average
age of an MTV viewer is 51. So like there is a whole segment
of people, you know, kind of up into their 40s who we just
weren't communicating with. And, and I think a lot of that
was self-inflicted, right? Like, I think a lot of Democrats
(30:36):
stayed away from parts of the Internet that they thought were
were cringy or controversial or,you know, not politically
correct enough or whatever. And that was to our detriment.
And so one of the things I've been telling my colleagues in
Congress is like, look, we talk about how important it is to
show up and talk to voters wherethey are.
(30:57):
And like, for Democrats historically, going to voters
where they are has meant union halls and VFW's and senior
centers. Like we have to be just as
serious about showing them and talking to people where they are
in online spaces as well. And so through social media,
through YouTube, through podcasts, not just political
programming, but lifestyle programming, right, health and,
(31:18):
and sports and all the rest, entertainment and, and talk
about people there. Yes, like people say cringy shit
sometimes, but like you go to a a union hall or a VFW, people
say cringy shit there they say. Crazy shit there too.
And we still show up, right? And we make our case and people
appreciate that. We show up and we listen.
And and so we win in those places, right?
(31:38):
And it's, and so it's the same exact thing.
And so, yeah, like I think 1 of.So one part of the problem is
particularly in some of these online spaces, not showing up
where people, particularly youngmen are is something that has
hurt us because they're just nothearing our message.
And then the second part, which I think you alluded to, is when
(31:59):
you don't show up, not only do people not hear you, but you
don't hear them exactly. Yeah.
And like that two way communication is really, really
important. And we as a party allowed
ourselves to get so siloed wherewe were only talking to each
other that you like, you don't become as effective a debater,
you don't have policy that's as thoughtful, you're not as
(32:20):
responsive to constituents if you're only talking with like
minded people. And one of the things I'm trying
to get better at is thinking about social media and online
engagement, not just about one way communication.
Like here's a list of all the events and meetings I had today,
but two way communication where I'm doing ask me anything's, I'm
(32:41):
doing stuff like this. Like I'm doing things where, you
know, I'm hearing from people and not just talking.
And I think as a party, we need to prioritize that again as
well. And the Republicans, they've had
a concerted strategy to do this for like 4 or five years now.
And so we've got some catching up to do and.
It used to be the opposite. That's the thing.
You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm only 22 years
old, but I, I like to watch a lot of old like political videos
(33:02):
on YouTube. And it was the Democratic Party
that was more in touch with people that were online, the
Democratic Party that was going places when, you know, when
Obama was the head of the ticketand talking to people that we
may not agree with, like him going and meeting Joe the
plumber in real life. Anyone that knows Joe, the yeah,
like that's a crazy thing. But I also wanted to ask you,
like Jon Stewart was talking to Leader Jeffries, I think 2 days
(33:22):
ago and he asked them, you know,is it a messaging problem only
or is there also a policy problem there?
And, and I kind of wanted to seewhat you think about that
because Jon Stewart brought up the idea of having our own, he
called it our own Project 2025. But having a list of policies,
even if it's like 4 to 5 policies that we support that we
will fight for like universal childcare, like like stock, you
(33:43):
know, you know, banning stock trading, having four to five
clear defined policies that we can run on and talk about.
So yes, absolutely. Like you need to have an agenda,
like people need to know what you stand for and it needs to be
an agenda that is compelling to people and also is something
that the other side is not willing to offer.
So yes, 100%. Like the first step to doing
that is listening. And I think part of, you know,
(34:04):
if you talk to some of my colleagues who have been like,
the most successful winning in red districts, you know, if you
talk to Jerry Golden, Marie Perez, Josh Harder, people like
that, they'll tell you that a lot of times the issues that
they campaign on are issues that, like, neither party is
talking about, like, right to repair, like the ability to fix
your own stuff, you know, stuff like that.
(34:28):
But Mary Peltola, even though she lost last time, she
outperformed Harris by like, almost 10 points.
Yeah, a whole section of her platform was stuff having to do
with fish that like nobody in the lower 48 states had any idea
what she was talking about. But her her voters did.
Right. And so like, again, like part of
it I think is to just like we got to do some listening and
(34:48):
thinking about like, what are the what are the real stresses
that people are feeling in theirlives and and how do we address
them? Great.
Point But going back to people who get their news from the
Internet in the last election going much more to the right
versus people who get their newsfrom TV and newspapers.
I feel like part of that beyond just like not going on the shows
and not appearing. I almost feel like an even
(35:08):
bigger part of that is that Democrats to me seem to not
understand the types of things that actually breakthrough to
young people online. The types of things that get
picked up by these like sort of apolitical news accounts, the
rap TV's of the world and get posted on there.
And then that this one infographic that has like 10
words on it, I think becomes a lot of people's like image of
(35:31):
the party for like the next month just from seeing that one
post. And I remember no shade to Chuck
Schumer, love Chuck Schumer. But I remember, I think it was
last year, I was in my dorm. I was in my apartment with a
couple of roommates and like I was watching a Warriors game or
something. But I overheard them that Chuck
Schumer had gone on the Senate floor and held up a Zen
container and said that we need to ban Zen.
And it was never going to pass ever.
(35:53):
And it hasn't passed. And it was obvious it wasn't
going to pass. But I remember that they one of
my friends turned to the other one.
He said, did you see Democrats are trying to ban Zins?
And it was because it got postedon a rap TV account with him
holding a zinc container and a big old headline that said,
like, Democrats introduces bill to ban Zins.
And like, I feel like Democrats can take advantage of that.
(36:13):
Like I do think like the stock trading bill, that's something
that can kind of go the other way online.
Amongst young people, yeah. And, and it's become a bit of a
meme that like you can make so much money if you just sign up
to do the exact same stock trades as your congressperson or
whatever. So I'm wondering, like, do you
feel like Democrats can do a better job of like, finding
these issues that are kind of flashy and sexy to young people
(36:34):
and like breakthrough in a way that, like, it seems like
Republicans have been able to. Yeah, I think so.
And again, like it's it just kind of comes back to the the
principle of like the best politicians are not the best
talkers, they're the best listeners.
So you know, like I I love to hear from you guys from others,
like what what you think some ofthose those issues are.
It's definitely not banning Zen like that's I had I this shows
(36:56):
you maybe that I'm into as well.I had not seen that Schumer had
done that. And that does not seem
politically smart to me or or even policy smart.
But, you know, I think like there's also just something to
like people want to feel agency in their lives.
Like they want to feel like theyhave control over their own
life. And so they don't love the idea
of government controlling everything, but like they don't
like the idea of big corporations controlling
(37:16):
everything either. And that's why I think things
like rights repair, things like having, you know, sort of a, an
economic frame around antitrust and more choice and more options
for consumers, more transparencyabout what you're buying like
could also be helpful. But but yeah, no, I think we, I
(37:37):
think we got to do some deep thinking about that for sure.
Well, as I'm saying, the vein ofdeep thinking, I know it's very
early. It's only like what, two months
in 2025? Looking forward to 2026.
I keep thinking a lot about 2006and you know, all the other
midterms, you know, 2010, 2014 and whatnot.
We're. We're now in the minority,
(37:58):
right? We're going to be going on the
offensive trying to take back the house.
You know, we came close. I got to say shout out to George
Whitesides. And that's my my home district,
California came. Through California.
Came through. That's right, we came.
Through but looking forward to the Smithson's right And you
know, obviously we're all talking about all these changes
we got to make and reaching young people and going where
they are. I like the idea of that that
(38:18):
national plan. You know, blade had shown me
something where it was like, oh,raise the minimum wage and a
couple other things which were great.
The universal pre Ki think. Simple things.
It's all good stuff, but you know, I think another topic you
touched on with Patola was hand tailoring it to your district.
And so looking forward to 2026, right?
When thinking about expanding your house majority, especially
in red districts, how do you seethe role of like, especially,
(38:41):
you know, blue Dogs or more conservative members or people
who actually understand their district and kind of starting to
break with this like ideological, Hey, everyone has
to be right here. It's like, if we want to win,
you know, rural Oklahoma, we're going to be campaigning on
different stuff than in, you know, suburban like San Diego.
So where do you see that happening?
And do you see like 2006 as kindof like a a blueprint?
Any thoughts? Yeah, for sure.
(39:02):
So, and, you know, look, I'm, I'm not a member of the Blue Dog
Caucus, but like, I really like what the new leadership of the
Blue Dogs is doing because it isplay based and, you know,
specific to the district. But also, you know, I think
they're trying to take it in a, in a direction where there's
sort of a little more economic populism than there used to be
in like the old school Blue Dogs.
Like, you know, like I remember thinking of like the old school
(39:23):
Blue Dogs in the 90s as basically being like the
Dixiecrats, right? Like, yeah, you know, just like,
yeah, like I should probably be careful what I say, but yeah,
like, basically being like the Dixiecrats and being like very
like retrograde and, and all of like their views and, and
conservative and whatnot. And, you know, I think what
(39:44):
Jared and Maria are trying to dowith the Blue Dogs is make it
like a little more populist and a little more like, like, yeah.
Like, we don't, we don't want too much government regulation,
but like, we also don't want bigcompanies running our lives
either. And like, we're fine with like,
taxing the billionaires if you can help pay down the debt and
give tax relief to the middle class.
And, and like, create sort of a counter to the Josh Hawley, JD
(40:06):
Vance version of populism where like, you know, there's like you
kind of break it up into quadrants, like.
The socially and fiscally liberals will always be
Democrats. The socially and fiscally
conservatives will always be Republicans.
There are far fewer socially liberal, fiscally conservative
people than you would think. Those people, like the David
(40:27):
Brooks is like the, you know, they tend to like, dominate the
media a lot. But like, there's actually not a
lot of people who are socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
There are a lot of people out there who are fiscally liberal
and socially conservative. I've been a ton over my
district. So my district, we haven't
talked about it much, but like, I even though it's Rhode Island,
I have a light blue district. Like Kamala got 52% of my
(40:51):
district. And yeah, it's like 5247.
And I got, so she won by 5246. She won by 6 in my district.
I won by 17. Damn, Seth.
Yeah. And like, and I've got a lot of
like people who fall into that fiscally liberal, socially more
moderate quadrant. And for whatever reason, as a
(41:13):
party, we were just like, Nope, like, don't want you as voters
for like the last decade. Like if you weren't with us all
the way on abortion, on guns, onwhatever, like, you're out.
And so there are the like, Republican populists, like the
Josh Hollies and JD Vance's. And they were like, like, sure,
(41:34):
you know, like we won't touch your Social Security, but like,
you're welcome here. I'll give you a good example.
Like I was, it's one of my townsin my district, Johnston, RI.
It's the most, they say it's themost Italian town in the
country. Per capita.
It's like 80 plus percent Italian.
Pauly D from Jersey Shore is from Johnston.
And I remember like years ago, before I was in Congress, there
(41:56):
was a rally at the Johnson Senior Center to save the
Affordable Care Act, to save Obamacare when Trump was trying
to overturn it. And I was there.
I wasn't speaking, but I was like there in the crowd.
And I was like next to this old lady.
And she was like, yeah, yeah, you know, save Obamacare, save
the Affordable Care Act, you know, for hour long rally, like
cheering, cheering. And then at the end, she turned
(42:17):
to me and she goes, but we're not going to give it to those
immigrants, right? And like, and obviously like, I
don't agree with that, but thereare a lot of people in that
space politically of like fiscally liberal and socially
more moderate. And I think what the Blue Dogs
are doing and sort of trying to create a space in the Democratic
Party for people who are with uson most things but not with us
(42:38):
on everything and doing it in a place based way is really
valuable. I'm optimistic about the
midterms. I mean, because Trump will
overreach, he will make mistakesmore and more more.
President Musk will overreach and make mistakes, President.
Musk is already over. President Musk laid off 1000 VA
employees today at like VA hospitals.
You come after that. Are we going to?
(42:59):
Start running ads on that, like just blasting.
You know, they just fired three.They also fired today.
They fired 1000 people at the VAhospitals.
They fired 3000 people in the USForestry Service who worked to
prevent wildfires. They, they fired almost 20% of
the staff of the, the agency that protects our nuclear
(43:19):
weapons, like stupid, stupid stuff that like Elon and his
minions are doing. So like I, I think, and I trust,
you know, Hakeem in our leadership, I do think we will
come out with a proactive policyvision that will appeal to
people as well. But like, you know, I, I feel
good about it, but we got to work hard and we got to
anticipate that, you know, Elon and crew are going to do
(43:41):
everything they can to try to stop us.
But I'll give House Democrats a pat on the back real quick.
I mean, I think if you had told any one of us before the
election that Kamala was going to lose the popular vote by 2
million votes, we would have thought we're on our way to
losing 20 seats. And we actually gained 1.
So we're doing, you know, a lot of things, right, I think in
terms of candidate quality in the House Democratic Caucus and
(44:06):
the D, triple C So, yeah, I think that'll continue.
Seth, real quick, I think you brought up like a great point
about running in these conservative districts and, and
the old mentality of the Blue Dogs was you need to be
conservative on every single issue.
But when you go to these rural district, they also rely on
Medicare, Medicaid, right? They like their Social Security.
(44:28):
They also want to raise taxes onthe rich and provide more
services for their kids. So, and I think you, you, it's
what they're doing now is, is a lot better than what the blue
Dogs were doing in the past. But like understanding that,
like that populist economic message resonates with a lot of
people, like the amount of conservative family members I
have that would send me like Luigi memes, whatever you think
about Luigi, right? Like there is anger towards
(44:50):
health insurance companies and, and obviously what he did was
now we obviously not right, but there is anger towards these
institutions, these corporationsand, and you need to like go in
there and captivate that anger and talk about it.
And it's interesting because I knew like very Republican people
are like, yeah, these health insurance companies are scamming
us, you know, and RFK is going to fix it.
I'm like, OK, he's not going to fix it, but you understand the
(45:11):
problem. Yeah, totally, totally, totally.
I mean, I think that again, there's a lot of people,
particularly in rural areas, whoare just mistrustful of any
large institution, whether it's a government or a big
corporation or a billionaire. Like a lot of people are just
mistrustful of, of all of that and want to see some checks and
(45:32):
want to see some controls. And like, you know, people feel
stuck, right? Like people feel stuck.
And so hacks and billionaires topay for better schools and
cleaner water and better healthcare.
The core there is very popular and, and we should lean into it.
But like, if someone isn't quiteall the way there with us on on
some other issue like that should not be disqualifying, you
(45:54):
know, for for us to welcome theminto the fold.
There's been a lot of discourse after the election about I think
a lot of people agree with everything we're saying and how
like some districts need to run on different issues or be a
little more conservative on someissues.
But there's been a lot of discourse about the the quote UN
quote groups and how a lot of Democrats and people who work in
Democratic politics, they're afraid of even if it might make
(46:16):
electoral sense to do this, thatit'll cause some backlash.
A group will give a quote to TheNew York Times that it calls
them some word that's going to be tainted with their career now
or they feel like after after working in Congress, they won't
be able to get a job now or whatever.
They're somehow afraid of the groups, whether warranted or
not. And do you feel like that's
something that, like, Democrats are starting to realize, like,
(46:37):
they don't need to listen to some of these groups when
they're claiming to be representative of parts of the
coalition and maybe aren't and don't need to take like,
unpopular stances? Do you feel like there's like
momentum on that side of the issue and we might be learning
our lessons from this election? Yeah, I think to an extent, and
it depends on the issue, but I think to an extent, you know, I,
(46:59):
even though I'm relatively new to Congress, I've been in
politics for 10 years because I was state treasurer before.
And like, I'm very comfortable now with the idea that, like,
you can't make everyone happy all the time.
And like, yes, that can create uncomfortable conversations.
And you could have some lifelongfriends who are very passionate
about one thing or another who are going to like you less.
But like, that's just like that's the life we choose being
(47:21):
in this business. And so, you know, I'm OK with
that. I think some of our other
colleagues are working on finding that coverage, that
courage and, and hopefully they'll find it.
But it's not just the members themselves.
I think a lot of times it's the Staffs also, as you all know,
because some of you have interred in Congress and worked
in Congress, like the pace is very frenetic and especially the
minority, you don't always have a lot of time to get up to speed
(47:43):
on an issue before a vote or a hearing.
And, and that's where the groups, quote, UN quote, have a
lot of their influence is, you know, a member and their Staffs
are like, we got 24 hours to figure out where we are on this
very complicated bill that we just found out we're voting on
yesterday. How can we figure this out?
Like, oh, here's the group who can come and explain it to us.
(48:05):
And I, I think something that weas like members and, and our
Staffs need to be better about is trying to like still rely on
people with expertise, but like expertise that, you know,
doesn't just come from one side of an issue, but like trying to
get like a more holistic group of groups to give us feedback
before we make a decision. I think that's something that we
can work on also. Yeah, yeah.
(48:27):
I think that that's a good way to look at it, just getting
different perspectives and we doappreciate your time Before we
do like, like you, I know you talked a lot about, you know,
stock trading, What are some other policies and issues you
care about and looking to make an impact on and, and where can
our viewers find you? And, and I know you're on all
the social media platforms, so we'll make sure to link that.
Yeah, So my aside from the stocktrading ban, my other big bill
(48:51):
that I'm getting ready to reintroduce is vacation for
everyone. So 1010 days of vacation per
year. I feel very passionate about
this. We like Americans like we work
hard. We have such like a grinded out
culture. And part of, like, empowering
working people is allowing working people to, like, enjoy
(49:12):
the food of their labor. 26,000,000 Americans do not get
any paid time off from work at all.
Like, which means that anytime they get a flat tire or their
kid is sick or something happens, they have to decide
between either not getting a paycheck at all or risk losing
their job or whatever. And so every country in Europe
(49:34):
guarantees, by the way, at least20 days.
And some countries give 30 days of paid vacation every year.
So my bill would be 10, 10 days of paid vacation for all
workers. I think it's just very common
sense. It's overdue, it's popular.
And a lot of the discourse, I think sometimes this is where,
like, we as Democrats also shootourselves in the foot a little
(49:55):
bit. A lot of the discourse is about
paid parental leave or paid sickleave, which is also very
important. But like, you should be able to
get a day off even if you're nota parent and even if you're not
sick. Like you shouldn't necessarily
need a doctor's note every time you want to take a day off from
work. And so it's called the PTO Act,
the paid time off act. Check it out.
(50:15):
We it was, of all the bills I introduced in the last Congress,
it was the one that I think had the most Co sponsors in the most
early traction. So obviously not going anywhere
under Republican control becauseRepublicans don't actually care
about workers. But I'm hopeful that when we get
the majority back that this can be part of the agenda.
Love. That I think that's like such a
cool policy that most people yeah, I mean, I I got to think
(50:37):
about my parents grew up workingall my life and they never
really got like vacation time soI didn't think about that until
now I. Also think that's what I was
talking about earlier. That's something that would
breakthrough, that would end up on the Instagram pages that
would. All the meme, all the pages.
Congressman wants to give you vacation time.
Yeah. Legal under vacation.
Yeah, exactly. No, I So yeah, I definitely want
(50:58):
to make a big push on that one. Also to say I mean.
That's a great one to hear, Congressman.
I gotta say, that's a really great bill.
I was just, I mean, it was stilllike taking a second to process
it. But other than that, we're going
to go ahead and let you go. We don't want to keep you
hostage much longer, but we wantto thank you so much for coming
on Progressives today. Is there anything you'd like to
leave our viewers a couple seconds for a direct message to
him? No, look, I I just say like to
everyone who's out there, like this is how we build back, like
(51:19):
stay engaged, have good conversations, question
everything and and lean in, don't lean out.
So like, I love what you guys are doing.
Thank you for doing it. Thanks for having me.
And yeah, let me know how I can be helpful with all of you going
forward as well. Thanks.
SO. Much, Congressman, It's been a
pleasure.
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