[0:03]Why would Les Wexner give Jeffrey Epstein control of his wealth, Congressman? I mean, that question is at the top of our list. Look, Oversight Democrats are here. We actually just all got here, landed here in Columbus, Ohio, and we're preparing tonight for
[0:20]what's going to be a very important deposition tomorrow. We know that there's probably no single person that facilitated the access to wealth and money that was transferred over to Epstein for services we're not really sure of, than Les Wexner.
[0:38]When you think about the plane, the island, the access to power, the enormous amount of money that was coming into Epstein and his associates. Most of that money was being essentially moved over by
[0:53]Wexner, who we know is an incredibly successful billionaire here in Ohio and across the country. The question is why? We're not exactly sure what Epstein was actually doing for Wexner. There's been some claims of financial advice.
[1:08]You don't pay a person the amount of money that Wexner was paying Epstein for just financial advice. They were very close for a long period of time. Wexner himself has been named pretty significantly in the Epstein files, but also by survivors as a key
[1:25]piece of this investigation. And so tomorrow is a very, very important day for us. We have a lot of questions about the finances, the relationship, what Wexner knew, who Jeffrey Epstein also received money from, what was actually Wexner's
[1:41]larger involvement with Ghislaine Maxwell. And we hope those questions will be answered tomorrow. Following the money is always a safe bet in the politics when you're doing investigations, Congressman. So we look forward to hearing what you guys hear from Les Wexner.
[1:55]I want to play something from Pam Bondi when she was there talking to the House, the House judiciary, and this is her interaction with Thomas Massie. Take a listen. Are you able to track who it was that obscured
[2:12]Les Wexner's name as a co-conspirator in an FBI document? Within 40 minutes, Wexner's name was added back. Within 40 minutes of me catching you red handed. Red handed, there was one redaction out of over 4,700
[2:28]and we invited you in. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. He needs to get, you're a failed politician. Other than the back and forth that I think embarrassed a lot of people, including the president that day. What she showed there at the end of the day, the
[2:46]attorney general was that the kind of carelessness that some of the Epstein files and these documents were handled with gave us a lot of mistakes like this. So when you talk to someone like Wexner and you think about the other folks that you're going to talk to, how do you connect those dots?
[2:59]Right? Because there are a lot of things that have been redacted. There are 3 million other documents that you guys aren't even getting to see that they have held back from any kind of release. So how do you help have Wexner and these other folks you guys want to talk to connect the dots for
[3:12]the American people? So the Wexner testimony is very important and as a reminder for the public, we're only going to get to talk to Wexner because we forced a subpoena motion on the Republicans. It's not someone that they had actually subpoenaed
[3:27]on their own to speak with. And so we are pushing these subpoenas and we've been working with survivors directly. Yeah, I was talking to one earlier today, getting information through a variety of interviews,
[3:44]other sources, folks on the ground in Ohio, and connecting dots. We have access to financial documents. And so the questions to Wexner are going to be pretty direct and he, we know he has significant information as to why he was providing so much money to Epstein.
[3:59]So that part is important. At the same time, what you've seen in that clip there is it's been pretty clear to me and I've gone to see the documents and the redactions as well. The names of billionaires and a very powerful men
[4:15]in some cases have been redacted in those files and there's absolutely no reason for them to have done so. Yet we know that survivors have been exposed in those same files. And so the question of course is why, why the cover up? Why are we protecting possible co-conspirators?
[4:31]Why are we protecting Jeffrey Epstein's essentially benefactors? These are real serious questions that the Justice Department has not answered, which is why Pam Bondi should be held in contempt or should resign. And the other piece that's really important, we keep talking about the files, Donald Trump calls this
[4:46]whole thing a hoax. Pam Bondi wants to move on. Let's be clear. Over 50% of the files, over 50% and likely a lot more have not been released to the public.
[4:59]We know most of the information, a lot of the information, things that we have heard that we're waiting for to be released. Those are that information is in the 50% there right now is being held at the DOJ and at the White House.
[5:17]So the DOJ and the president, they need to release the files. They haven't given us anything. There's no transparency. They're over redactions. They've held what they're choosing to hold. And so they're, you know, they're I don't know what they think is going on, but we're we're just getting
[5:30]started in this investigation. And until we get access to the other 50% of the files, this investigation is not over. And justice, we're going to get justice for the survivors. Congressman, I just want to clarify really quickly because
[5:44]it sounded like you said files held at the DOJ and also held at the White House. Are you saying that the White House has files that you have not seen? I think the White House is directing the what comes out. That's my it's my belief, personal belief that the White
[6:00]House is directing the DOJ what should get released and what shouldn't get released. And let's be let's look at some. Do you believe they have files at the White House? I don't know that the that there's files at the White House personally. I think that what I meant to say the White House clearly is involved in the cover.
[6:14]But one thing to be to be clear, so and I think this kind of this kind of shows what's happening here. If we'll remember when we heard months ago that the FBI was redacting information and the FBI, we heard all these agents working on redacting information in Virginia and other places.
[6:30]What we know now is what likely has happened is that of the 50% of files that we actually received and that Congress was given access to, when the DOJ team that gave Congress access received those files, there's a possibility that they were already redacted.
[6:48]And so what they gave us was pre-redacted files that teams had done months ago. And so that is the issue is you're having many, many folks and different teams look at these files. And so while some of the FBI think they've given us everything, there's been teams that for months have
[7:03]been redacting information that we need to see. So it's time to release all the files and stop playing games. You know, it is interesting to listen to you, Congressman, and then to compare your vision of how this is going to unfold with the White House's vision of
[7:20]how this is going to unfold or is currently unfolding. I want to start by playing you some sound of Hillary Clinton on BBC News yesterday, and then I want you to take a listen to how the president of the United
[7:36]States responded to what she had to say in that interview yesterday on Air Force. We'll take a listen. Why did they want to pull us into this? To divert attention from President Trump. This is not complicated. This is so obvious and they keep trying to divert.
[7:52]Look at this shiny object. We're going to have the Clintons, even Hillary Clinton, who never met the guy. We're going to have her there. Let's focus on what's really happening here. You have an attorney general and a justice department attempting to hide information that
[8:08]should be made public. I have nothing to hide. I've been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. They went in hoping that they'd find it and found just the opposite. I've been totally exonerated and I've been totally exonerated.
[8:23]You know, I've been totally exonerated on Epstein. So there was some editing there. So I just want to be clear, Congress, over the course of 30 seconds, just 30 seconds, the president claimed four times that he's been exonerated when it comes to Epstein, your response to the president.
[8:38]I mean, Donald Trump appears in the Epstein files almost more than any other single person. Give me a break. He's the one that called this whole thing a hoax. He's trying to bury it. He's leading a cover up. He says he's going to release him. Then he's not going to release him.
[8:52]Jeffrey Epstein calls Donald Trump his best friend for 10 years. There's women that are being trafficked out of Mar-a-Lago. Why is everything revolved around Palm Beach and New York? The two locations where Donald Trump clearly also has homes and influence. All arrows point back to Donald Trump.
[9:10]So Donald Trump needs to be honest with the American public. Why is he covering up and for who is he covering up for? What information does he know? And I have news for Donald Trump. We are not stopping. We aren't going anywhere.
[9:25]We're just getting this investigation started. And we have questions for the president. So the president wants to clear this up. We welcome him to come to the Oversight Committee and answer our questions. But all he's trying to do is divert attention from himself and from whoever he's protecting.
[9:41]That's why there's this cover up in place. And Pam Bondi is leading that right now at the DOJ. But look, we'll go anywhere, including where we're at right now in Ohio to get answers. We've got important deposition set up and Hillary Clinton,
[9:56]by the way, is correct. She understands, and I think others, that this is about Donald Trump. So he has a lot to answer for. And I think in the weeks and months ahead, there's going to be a lot more, I think, that's going to come out, not just of files because they're going to come
[10:12]out, but also important testimony from witnesses. Turning to a clash over free speech in this week's primary race for Texas Senate, where candidates, of course, do all kinds of media. And yet the Trump administration was caught trying to block one Democratic candidate, James Tallarico,
[10:27]from appearing on Stephen Colbert's show. Trump's FCC was pressuring CBS, which notably is now owned by the MAGA-allied Ellison family, to censor the interview from airing at all. Early voting in that Texas primary began just today.
[10:46]This full race will transpire on March 3rd. Now, let me just tell you straight up what's happening here. Across its 90 years, with oversight from both parties, the FCC didn't meddle in late night comedy or the attendant political interviews.
[11:03]Now Trump is getting the FCC to try, given his apparent fixation with the shows on late night that still criticize him. He lost that bid to get Jimmy Kimmel canceled, something that we saw was terribly unpopular to the point that Disney was losing subscriptions and money over it.
[11:19]Now he appears to have achieved a version of this censorship of one interview, a clear bid to try to control what Americans see going into a campaign season, at least in that area, that state. Now, let me remind you, independent outlets do
[11:35]not cave to this kind of government censorship, including conservative independent outlets. Whenever you think of Rupert Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal, that paper is fighting, not settling, a similarly far-fetched effort by Donald Trump to
[11:51]use, in this case, the courts, civil powers instead of the FCC, to go after reporting, which the journal says was accurate about Trump. New York Times also fighting those efforts, as do independent TV outlets. But on this one, the Trump administration didn't go
[12:06]after the New York Times or an outlet that might be independent. He very clearly, through the FCC, picked an allied media empire that could be expected to play ball. CBS lawyers allegedly tried to tell Colbert that the interview had to be censored and that any
[12:26]discussion about that censorship must also be censored. This is a brand new story. So how do we know this? Mr. Colbert, who is leaving at the end of his contract, publicly refused, leading to this unusual presentation on his show.
[12:43]We were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast. And because my network clearly doesn't want us to talk about this, let's talk about this.
[12:57]And this doesn't just affect interviews. The rules forbid any candidate appearance, including by voice or picture. That's right. I am absolutely not allowed to show a photo of Texas state representative, James Tallarico.
[13:17]Cause that's not him. That's a stock photo we found when we Googled not James Tallarico. Of course, that he was thinking about dropping the exception for talk shows, because he said some of them were motivated by partisan purposes.
[13:34]Well, sir, you're chairman of the FCC. So FCC you. Colbert mixing his humor with what is obviously a serious rebuke of corporate capitulation at his own network with his own bosses.
[13:50]He noted, of course, the buck stops with the president who's now trying to wield or abuse his power to blatantly censor and attack Americans free speech. Let's just call this what it is. Donald Trump's administration wants to silence anyone
[14:06]who says anything bad about Trump on TV because all Trump does is watch TV. Okay. Now, if the Trump administration got its way, this new censorship might have even stayed secret. Colbert says he defied those corporate lawyers,
[14:24]muzzling him, discussing what happened, even though they obviously did prevent, he says, the interview from airing on CBS. Many other efforts might continue to stay secret, however, because more companies are being sold to
[14:38]Trump allies and reshaped. And Mr. Colbert has decided to risk a lot for this line of work and comedy and free speech. Not everyone in entertainment and culture may do that.
[14:54]Now, he did get the interview published online. I'm actually going to show you, our viewers, a highlight of that in a moment. We are not backing down from any implied or other effort to censor this kind of stuff. We also operate on cable.
[15:09]The FCC claims it has more leverage on network. But as I mentioned, most networks and Rupert Murdoch himself don't usually bow this quickly, this secretively to this effort to censor you hearing from candidates and public officials.
[15:23]As for the interview, we'll watch it together with our guest, MSNOW analyst, Juanita Tolliver, also host of Archival, a history podcast. Welcome back. We'll show that highlight as promised in a second, but your view of this and how Colbert decided to blow
[15:40]the whistle, not everyone does. Like that was the perfect behavior, Ari. Look, Colbert rang the alarm loudly and publicly, and he did not capitulate proactively. That is essential here because what that means is
[15:58]not only did he still do the interview and post it on YouTube, but he still dedicated a full eight or nine minutes of his show to talking about the very person that they did not want. And in between his jokes, he said, this is very serious, deadpan to camera.
[16:15]I think that that is a behavior that I hope regular people apply to their daily lives. I mean, we've seen it in Minnesota with the people coming out and protesting in their communities against the ramp up of ICE. We've seen it with the journalists targeted by the federal government, one even live streaming as agents
[16:30]were banging on her door. I think it's important that people understand this is a model that they can follow and absolutely should follow Ari. Right. And you look at this and any one of these can be sort of fly specced, right?
[16:45]There are people who might say, oh, well, they think late night does too much politics anywhere. There might be other people who say, oh, Mr. Lemon, we've covered his, his coverage. Well, they didn't like that he was in the church. Um, but you take it all together and you see you
[17:00]have an administration that will very clearly try to secretly, so you won't hear about it and publicly if they get caught, abuse the government to decide what's on TV, to decide whether you hear other views and indict journalists now to and counting along
[17:15]with a lot of the other targets they've shown. And so with that in mind, uh, they are not censoring, uh, the, the video from getting out on the internet. Colbert came up with that as a step and there's, you know, reasons why he's within the CBS structure and
[17:28]he says they blocked him. They say, well, no, they just had a alternative equal time plan. Um, but here's some of that interview that the Trump administration wanted to stop. Do you mean to cause trouble? I, I, I think that Donald Trump is worried that
[17:46]we're about to flip Texas. Um, corporate media executives are selling out the first amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians and a threat to any of our first amendment
[18:02]rights, the threat to all of our first amendment rights. It shows the threat of someone like Stephen Colbert Ari, someone who is willing to buck the system as the Trump administration probes for fractures within the pillars of democracy, including
[18:17]within media and the press. The Trump administration is trying to declare case closed, nothing to see here with the Epstein files, but they're just about the only people saying that. It's not even clear if they believe that to be true.
[18:30]The criticisms are mounting. They're getting louder and louder and they're increasingly on the right over the mishandling on the part of Donald Trump and his cabinet of the release of the files. Listen to what right-wing mega friendly podcaster Sean
[18:44]Ryan had to say about it. You're going to protect pedophiles. You're going to protect pedophiles rather than go after them and hope that everybody's happy that the Dow hit 50,000.
[18:59]Are you out of your mind? I guess the whole drain the swamp campaign promise was another lie. Huh? Man, the lies are stacking up fast. I've never seen so many lies appear in what a year.
[19:14]It's only been a year. Look at all the lies. I mostly love him because he swears more than I do, but that's a huge deal for his audience. The people who go to him for his take on the
[19:29]news to hear that is, is cannot be overstated. What a big break that is with Trump and MAGA. And I think he was speaking right to you, Pam. In Congress, the investigations into those lies he is referencing and what has been revealed in the Epstein
[19:44]files are just getting started as well. Tomorrow, the House Oversight Committee will question billionaire Les Wexner, who is named thousands of times in the Epstein files that have been released by the Justice Department. He was named as a possible co-conspirator as well.
[19:58]David and Alex are still here. Are you surprised by the reaction? This feels like an issue where the permission structure was baked in before Trump was reelected because this issue was such a huge deal on the right. But even even understanding that, as I've come to understand
[20:14]that, I am surprised by how enraged they are by the handling. I'm not surprised because you have to understand or you have to recall, as you do understand it, what role the Epstein story played in the MAGA imagination. This is not a scandal like the Qatar jet or Trump
[20:30]giving, taking money from the businessman in UAE to release chips. This is a religion. Totally. What what? The value statement. What MAGA people were told is there's a global conspiracy of cannibalistic satanic pedophiles that permeates the entire upper strata of American society.
[20:47]They're often anti-Semitic overtones. This is not always but often. But there is this vast conspiracy of blood sucking vampiric cannibals. And there is one Jesus figure who is defending America against the satanic conspiracy, and that is Donald Trump. Now, according to the religion, he can't tell
[21:01]you everything right away. But rest assured, in the darkness, Donald Trump is battling Satan. And then it turns out, I actually know he and Satan were best friends. He's in the Satan files a million times or whatever it is. And in fact, he's engaged and he's engaged in it.
[21:15]It's not it's not like a cover up of a scandal. It is the collapse of a whole system of religious belief that was the one thing that compensated people for the true fact that Donald Trump was making their material lives in every way worse from the first moment he became president.
[21:30]I think it's also that they've made the wrong assessment. This gets back to sort of the weakness of his political information stream. The political damage for Trump isn't just being in them. It's hiding them. Hiding them is the thing that goes against this religion and this worldview.
[21:45]Well, because it raises the question in this world, there are two kinds of people, people who believe the pedophile vampire story and people who are in the pedophile vampire network. So if you are not actively revealing the pedophile vampire story, what does that say?
[21:58]You're probably yourself a pedophile vampire. And that's a trick that the maga world played against Hillary Clinton. It played it against John John Podesta. They played it against. That's the pizza gate story. You either believe our religion or you are Satan.
[22:12]And now Donald Trump is revealing himself as a nonbeliever in the religion. So what does that mean? Satan. I also think that's that's the inner ring that kept this story alive for the seven intervening years where it was sort
[22:27]of a law enforcement story and then became a political story. And now it is again a law enforcement story. But I think the outer ring is people that voted for Trump because they hate the elites. Yes. And now, like, he's also defying
[22:41]the sort of religiosity of maga. But he's also offending the much bigger ring of people that swung over to him because one, they thought that the price of everything would go down. And two, they thought he would be more transparent about the powerful people trafficking young girls.
[22:55]I mean, all due respect for those who believed in pedophilia, not not due respect, but pedophile vampires aside, there was the question. There is a fundamental belief. And it's not necessarily wrong that the system is rigged against common folks, especially young girls.
[23:08]Yes. Yes. And and there the sex crimes piece of it is the worst layer of it. But the idea that Donald Trump was going to unrig the system and drain the swamp that was central to his message message. And that is why he was elected by a larger portion
[23:23]of the country than just the 15 to 25 percent of maga that believe in the pedophile vampire QAnon story. Right. And he has done nothing but double down on the notion that the system exists for and by the elites, whether it is the affordability crisis that he has
[23:38]done nothing to allay the tariffs that do not benefit the American public immigration enforcement that is gutting the labor force that is also screwing up the American economy to say nothing of terrorizing a large portion of this country.
[23:53]And then you have his behavior in and around the Epstein files. It's not as if more material comes out and there's nothing in it. More material comes out and everyone's like, why didn't we have this? Well, you're seeing resignations at the highest levels of government, European governments.
[24:08]Well, where's the comeuppance here in American companies? You're private business. The only person who seems intent on closing this Pandora's box is Donald Trump. It's like the man's never seen a detective story. The more you protest about nothing, it's not me.
[24:22]I have nothing to do. God, I'm exonerated. The more likely it is that you are actually playing a central role. Here's the why. And if I can indulge just a minute of maybe irresponsible speculation, when Donald Trump tried to keep the story closed, did he just do that because of aimless malice?
[24:38]Did he do that because of his own reputation? Or were these revelations a potential source of power in the past few months that he's been using? And I just wonder the people who are in the files, who have been named, some of whom have suffered very severe career ending shame,
[24:54]who may be on their way to criminal jeopardy. Did any of them have conversations with Donald Trump? I'm saying this in a speculative way in the past year or even before that said, you know, I could really use your help on this matter because no one would be more distressed than me if these stories about you
[25:08]came into public view. I mean, it argues for him to benefit politically again. I don't know. I can't care more than he does about his. But I mean, to get them all out and let the ships fall with him.
[25:21]But you're right. And his pardon behavior. Was he was he pressuring people? Yeah. Was he using this as a source of power to pressure people over the past few months? Let's get into it. Joining us, co-host of FAQ NYC and associate professor of political science at Fordham
[25:38]University, Christina Greer, democratic strategist, pollster and MSNOW political analyst, Cornell Belcher and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, Rick Wilson. So, Cornell, President Obama right or wrong? It was complicated.
[25:57]Look, as someone who was, you know, at least I was young back when in 2007, when we started that journey with then Senator Obama, I guess I'm old now. He's right. There was an energy. And I think I remember what after shortly after he
[26:13]announced one of the first events, kickoff events we did on a college campus, the campaign didn't even organize it. It was young people who organized it themselves. And young people have been a critical base of voters for
[26:28]for Democrats, but also particularly in the presidential election. And look, it's not so much that so many young people, you know, swung a different way in the last election. You had you had the difference between seniors and and
[26:47]voters under and voters under 30 was about 24 points in turnout. Right. So you do see a pulling back of these young these young voters and making up less of the electorate. And that's a really big problem for Democrats. And look, we have in the we have a system where
[27:03]for better or worse, there is both hope and there's fear. And we see on the right, they've been very successful at driving fear and mobilizing around fear. And I think to the president's point for these younger
[27:17]voters and certainly voters on on the left, it is they're less motivated by fear and more motivated by the sense of hope that that President Obama gave them. And also like the last time our party was really sort of remade
[27:32]and expanded was by a guy by the name of Jesse Jackson, who was also giving people hope. Right. And and rest in peace, Jesse Jackson, someone who who, quite frankly, a point of preference. I'm in politics right now because of Jesse
[27:46]Jackson as a young man. I decided to get involved with politics because of the hope that Jesse Jackson was bringing. So I think there's a lot of a lot of point up there about hope. But but not so much about age because because at the same time, Bernie Sanders would like a moment like a
[28:01]note because he also I was going to bring up Bernie Sanders in the in the next breath here, because I think that's right. And by the way, the rev was just on a moment ago where Al Sharpton, Sharpton, and he was saying that he got into politics and he said he was in his teenage
[28:16]years, 13 or 14, because of Reverend Jackson. So he inspired quite a few people, prominent, important people that are out there right now. You included Cornell. So there's the Bernie note here. Obama makes a note to point out Mom, Donnie. I wonder is is the key not just age, but also
[28:33]speaking to the moment. Mom, Donnie spoke to the moment here in New York City, especially among younger voters who did much of what the same what Cornell was describing that that younger people did for Obama in the early days of the campaign
[28:46]got out and organized. There was a an army of young people out on the streets of New York City for months, putting up Mom, Donnie posters, canvassing for him, trying to get the word out. I mean, he was a nobody candidate in January and he ended up winning the primary in June, which
[29:03]is a huge, huge deal. So is it is it socialism? Is that is that the winning argument? I don't think it's socialism. I keep in mind this time last year, Mom, Donnie had about one percent. Yeah, it's age and energy and policy.
[29:18]Don't forget, you know, when we think about Mom, Donnie winning the primary in June 24th and walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at seven in the morning to talk to voters and hear more about their policy issues, we're not getting that from a 79 year old candidate. Right. And so the Democrats and
[29:33]Republicans are both getting it from Bernie. We'll leave him aside. That's a different thing. But there's a lack of baton passing in both parties, which is quite frustrating because not only does it clear people out of the pipeline, but I have the honor and privilege of hanging out with young people in
[29:46]the classroom every week. And they're saying, well, I want to get involved in politics. But there's a calcification of folks who are just in their spots. And it doesn't seem like they want to leave. You know, so on the one hand, you've got Jerry Nadler who says, I'm 78.
[30:01]It's time to pass the baton, which is fantastic that there's an open primary and there are 12 people running. But at the age of 78, my students who were in that district are saying, wow. So all those years, people who were interested in running
[30:14]possibly had barriers to entry. And so Mom, Donnie succeeded one with a policy proposal, series of proposals for New Yorkers. But part of that's because he walked around all five boroughs of New York to hear what people wanted
[30:30]to tell him about their their needs and wants for for the city. Rick, are you seeing this from anybody out there in the field right now, Democrat or Republican, beyond Mom, Donnie here in New York? You know, I think two things that strike me is is James Telerico is that such a he's burst onto the scene.
[30:48]It's been an amazing sort of rise to prominence by Telerico. And and you've got other candidates who are in the Democratic side coming up. They're not young, young, but they're also not 80, which is a big a big change in the in the chemistry that
[31:01]we've seen for a long time. Yeah, I want to put up I think we have a full screen of this. The years, the decade that the I think the past six presidents were born in. It's all the 1940s. It's Bill Clinton and George W.
[31:22]Bush, Biden, Trump, all born in the 1940s. The only exception is Barack Obama, who was not born in the 40s. But I mean, Bill Clinton, born in the 40s. Fine. He was elected president in his 40s because it was the 90s.
[31:39]George Bush was also was he in his late 40s? Yeah. 60. No, that's I'm looking at the wrong graphic. George Bush also he was 54 when he was elected. So younger. But what is the deal with us skewing older lately?
[31:53]Why why have we elected very, very old presidents the past few cycles? Rick, it's a gerontocracy. I mean, we have we have a government basically
[32:08]where where the median age is about 25 years older than the median age of the country. And so you see a lot of these people that are holding office in the Senate, in the House, they've been holding office because they're holding on and they do block other people from coming into
[32:22]into government, into power. And I think that there's a there it has to become unstuck at some point. And they and they also young people don't want to talk about the 400 page policy document. They want to talk about things that that affect them.
[32:36]And I think a lot of these older things, these older candidates are not able to do that because they can't understand what's going on in the mind of a young voter right now. They don't they don't have the cognitive connection to that generation.
[32:51]Cornell. Yeah. And I just want to expand on something that Rick started here is there's a structural problem, right? You know, between 84 and 88 percent of incumbents when reelection and why they win reelection,
[33:08]because they are incumbents and and so you have money and infrastructure. Look, it costs you it costs you four million dollars to run for for for for for Congress. And I'm not even talking about a Congress for a seat and anywhere near a major media market.
[33:24]Right. And so you need that money, you need that infrastructure and you need that and you need that support. So there are structural barriers to say a 34, 35 year old who says, you know, who is a who who's
[33:38]a who's a car mechanic that says, you know what? I want to I want to run for I want to run for Congress. The structural hurdles for running for Congress are as high as I think they they've ever been. And there's way too much. And look, I earn a living from money in politics, Katie,
[33:55]but there's way too much money dictating our politics right now in this country. Yeah, I think that that's absolutely right. And it's really difficult to get around that. It's difficult to have a conversation where you don't account for that, because, I mean, the question I want to ask you is, do you need an a candidate who is not
[34:10]only younger and more in touch and maybe talking about economics and costs and focusing on affordability, but is also not so out of step on social issues with the part of the country that they want to represent. And is that a moot conversation to have because of what
[34:26]Cornell was just saying, the the barriers that are put in place for most people to run for office? I mean, I agree with Cornell. There are definitely some real structural barriers. Especially with young people. I mean, the minimum age to run for Congress is 25. But I mean, how many 25 year olds have a network of people
[34:41]that could donate to them? So some of it is messaging. I think we also have to think about what type of office you're running for. So I always encourage my students to think about city council, to think about state houses where there's a lot of money and power that goes to state houses.
[34:54]And even in an important state like New York, there are people who are sometimes getting elected and reelected with three and four thousand votes because people just don't even bother to pay attention to these very important positions where billions of dollars in the state of New York pass through state houses.
[35:09]And then you work your way up through the pipeline. I think some of it is just a lack of education to know all the elected offices that are possible for people to run in. A lot of people just know president, governor, senator, and they sort of conflate senator in Congress
[35:23]and House and Senate. But there are a lot of pipeline positions where you can actually learn how to be a good candidate. You can learn how to be a good public servant. You can learn about policy. You don't have to just jump to D.C. to start councilman as a councilperson is
[35:37]a good place to start.