2/26/26: Trump Humiliates MAHA RFK Jr, Hakeem Caught Funneling AIPAC Money, AI Midterm Wars Breakout

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Hi, it's Jill Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend, Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible. Dance with the change, dance with the breakdowns. The embodiment of Pisces intuition with Capricorn power moves. So I'm like delusionally proud of my chart. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. 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So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. So we had a Maha Surgeon General Pick, who was taking a grilling yesterday in the Senate. So this is Casey Means, who is a physician, but she is not currently licensed. And she also did not finish her surgical residency. So those are things that came up in the hearings, but also her views on a variety of subjects and her apparent conflicts of interest were also very significant here. She's sort of like a wellness influencer. She's also an entrepreneur. She has this medical device that she runs the company for. In any case, The first clip I want to show you here is a Republican Senator, Cassidy, who is questioning her intently, and he's a physician as well, who is questioning her intently on her views regarding vaccines and whether there is any vaccine link to autism. Let's take a listen to that. We've had an outbreak of whooping cough in Louisiana, vaccine preventable disease. Children have actually died from it. Think about it. A child about the age of your child dying from a vaccine preventable disease. and some have been scared to vaccinate their children because they've been told incorrectly that vaccines cause autism. Do you believe that vaccines, whether individually or collectively, contribute to autism? Senator Cassidy, you're a physician, I'm a physician. The reality is that we have an autism crisis that's increasing and this is devastating to many families, and we do not know as a medical community what causes autism. The administration has just committed a huge amount of funding to look at the exposome of all environmental factors that could be contributing to autism. And until we have a clear understanding of why kids are developing this at higher rates, I think we should not leave any stones unturned. There's been a lot of evidence showing that they're not implicated. Do you not accept that evidence. I do accept that evidence. I also think that science has never settled. And I think that the effort to look at comprehensive cumulative exposures of our exposome into what is causing autism is important. And I look forward to seeing those results and sharing the best public health information with the American people. So she obviously refuses there to rule out a link between autism and vaccines. This theory is widely discredited and, you know, so my mind is open. And, you know, we've got to continue to explore, which I just, you know, it shows you kind of what corner of the health and wellness universe she comes from. And he asked Orion a bunch of questions about various vaccines. You know, would you recommend to a mother that her child get the measles vaccine? And she couldn't just come out and say, you know, she had to sort of spin and couldn't give just like straightforward answers on any of this stuff. Yeah, the measles one is killing me. Like, are we really doing like, come on. Have we really forgotten? that measles can be, you know, damaging and deadly? Like, what are we doing here? Chris Murphy went after her about those conflicts of interest that you mentioned. Let's roll D1. The document from the FTC says this. If you endorse a product through social media, your endorsement message should make it obvious when you have a relationship with the brand. Are you familiar with that? Certainly. So, as you know, there is a pending complaint regarding your failure to adhere to those guidelines. I'll give you an example. So, there's a prenatal vitamin called WeNatal. Your filings before this committee show that you started receiving compensation in the spring of 2024. And yet in September of 2024, you posted a video saying that you had no financial relationship to the company, just a big fan. And then in October, you said not sponsored, just love these. But in fact, you have documentation before this committee that showed when you said those things, you had a financial relationship. You had already started receiving money from that company. So you weren't telling the truth when you said you were just a fan. You were actually receiving money, correct? In any post where I said I am not receiving money, I had not been receiving money at that time. But you had received partnership fees for this particular prenatal vitamin. In fact, prior to September and October, you had posted partnership links in which you get compensated based upon click-throughs, correct? I'm happy to look at whatever documentation you're talking about, but I do not, this is, it's incorrect, and it's a false representation. Crystal, what is, like, I don't understand how this is a conversation. Like, if she's revealed that she was taking the money in the spring, by the fall, said she wasn't, like, it sounds like you're caught. Yeah, I mean, he's got her. Like, okay, I'm busted. He's got her dead to rights here. How is she sticking by her story? He's got her dead to rights here. And not just here. There was an investigation and he presses her on on war of this stuff in out of 140 times where she promoted products on social media. She only disclosed she failed to disclose her financial relationship in 79 of those times. And this is where I just this whole crew utterly disgust me, because here's the thing. There are big problems with our with our food system. There are big problems with our pharmaceutical testing regimes and like the corruption. And that's one of the things they talk about, the like revolving door between the FDA. True. But then you bring in these literal snake oil salesmen who are worse and more dishonest than the existing system. And so you're taking advantage of things that are real problems that people are genuinely concerned about. And you look around the country like the country is deeply unhealthy. And then you put in a bunch of cranks who want to undercut the things that actually do work like, you know, measles vaccines and then sell you a bunch of crap. that isn't actually tested under anything remotely approaching the standards of the, you know, the pharmaceuticals, like these supplements and crop, they don't get, they hardly are tested or have to meet any sort of regulatory standard. They push this stuff and act like they're a better alternative to what we already have. You know, for me, the tell is the fact that none of these people are interested in universal healthcare, which would be the first place you would start if you actually wanted to improve the quality of care in this country. But none of them, you know, they all have this very libertarian, like up by your bootstraps, up by your, you know, tallow oil or whatever, beef tallow approach to health. And then they're deeply dishonest about their own financial ties. I'll give you another one with her. So her health tech company, it's called Levels. It's like glucose monitoring device and has probably already benefited from the fact that RFK Jr. has been pushing this wearable tech. Now, she claims if she's if she attains this position of Surgeon General, which I think is a little bit of a question mark here. But anyway, if she attains a position, she's going to like, you know, not be involved in levels and she's going to divest and blah, blah, blah. But we can already see the track record of the way she's abused the trust of, you know, people who follow her who genuinely believe she has this sort of new agey approach and that she's righting the wrongs of the traditional medical system. And so that to me, that abuse of trust is just so gross. Yeah. And so Angela also Brooks, senator from Maryland, also pressed her on some of this. Let's roll D2. In your newsletter, number 33, you acknowledge that Peak has sponsored you. Now, were you aware that this company was served notice under California's Proposition 65 for containing and failing to disclose that lead above the allowable amounts of carcinogen and reproductive toxin was present. I just want to repeat, I've worked with the Office of Government and Ethics. I'm not going to be taking any financial compensation. Okay, but we're talking about just the ones you've already... So this is an ethics... We're talking about conflicts. And I have been cleared by the Office of Government and Ethics through an exhaustive process. I have signed a letter that I will be fully compliant. And this is before, during, and after the term. I take it very seriously, and I'll work closely with them to make sure there are no conflicts. The point here is that you've received compensation from these companies. including Daily Harvest, where this company was subject to an investigation by the Food and Drug Administration after hundreds, became seriously ill after consuming the product. And these are companies that you have received money from. They've been investigated and you are railing out against pharmaceutical companies that you say are advertising these products that mislead the public. And yet, you know, you've received compensation from companies and you promoted them in your newsletter. And you're doing the same thing the pharmaceutical companies are doing by advertising and influencing people for these products that have been deemed to be unsafe for the public. And Crystal, I think this is actually the kind of stuff that a lot of Maha people might be even willing to look past if they thought they were getting results. They say, oh, this is the mainstream media, the corrupt media, you know, coming at people who are trying to overturn the system. They didn't have a problem when Big Pharma was doing this. They didn't have a problem when the pesticide companies or the chemical companies were engaged in the revolving door. All of a sudden, you know, when our movement, you know, comes along, now all of a sudden they get concerned about conflicts of interest and corruption. I think they might be willing to even indulge some of those arguments from people that they trust, like Casey or RFK Jr., but they're not getting what they want either. And I think that is huge. This was like just a lightning bolt to the Maha movement to put up D3 here. One of the chief objections that the Maha crowd has is to round up, is to this carcinogenic pesticide, herbicide, that is used extraordinarily liberally on American crops. I mean, on American crops. And that a lot of research suggests is carcinogenic at certain levels. Uh, it's one thing for that, you know, and in fact, RFK Jr., you know, successfully won a multi hundred million dollar lawsuit, you know, against Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer, um, for, you know, the way that it was using and disclosing the risks around, uh, around Roundup and glyphosate. Along comes the Trump administration and says, not only are we not going to kind of go to war against Roundup and glyphosate, but we are going to use the Defense Production Act, which is a kind of 1950s era law that allows the Pentagon to legally mandate that a business produce something. A Hegseth is threatening to use the Defense Production Act on Anthropic to legally mandate them to allow the Pentagon to use Claude for its autonomous armed drones and for mass surveillance. Like they're trying to use this DPA on Claude. But they did use the DPA on Bayer and told Bayer, you must produce this product that the Mahamams think is killing people. And because they are mandating that you produce it, then you're going to have some level of legal immunity. That's right. For the production of this. So not only are you not kind of going to war against it, you are actively siding with them. This came after, you know, the EPA named chemical lobbyists to one of its top positions. And there were a number of other glaring sirens that the old industry was actually still in place here. But this one has, like, this one has people absolutely freaking out. The Times quotes a turning point USA. Amaha podcaster saying like, I'm done. Like, I can't, I can't persuade these women to vote for Republicans in the midterms when you're, when you're doing stuff like this. So that's my take. Like, I think they'd be willing to look past all of the garbage and the corruption and the, oh, there's lead and this vitamin that she was pushing. It's like, yeah, it happens. But to do this, on top of all that, like, I'm sure it's check please for a lot of these women. What, what, What do you think? Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I will say I think you're correct that they would be willing to overlook or just not dig into and just feel like, oh, this is just a smear campaign against her because she's trying to overturn the system. I will say as someone who is in the overturn the system camp that one thing I have learned is that you actually have to hold your people to a higher standard because you can't expect that the media is going to be even handed when it comes to insiders versus outsiders. So, you know, there may be a legitimate critique there that, you know, previous people who had various compromised interests with the pharmaceutical industry or whatever, they didn't get the same level of scrutiny. I'm not saying that's the case or not, but I would certainly be open to that argument. But I think if you are going to understand what is required to actually make change to entrenched interests, whether it's, you know, big food or big chemicals or big pharma, you are going to have to be, yes, you're going to have to hold yourself to a higher standard. You are going to have to meet a higher bar. You are going to have to be perfect, just as Nora and Momtani in the way that they're like, you know, trying to turn a snowball fight into a scandal in New York City, how aggressively they will come at you. But putting that aside, you know, on this specific issue of glyphosate, it kind of reminds me of like the it's like the Epstein Files moment for the podcast bros. It's sort of like that for the Maha moms where it's just like I can't come up with a colorable rationale that's not just the same old standard issue industry corruption. And then all of your heroes who five seconds ago before they were actually RFK Jr., I think there was a report that even came out during this administration sounding the alarm about glyphosate. But then the moment that Trump says, no, we're doing this, they're like, OK, well, we we understand and we get it and we support it. We stand by it. She got asked. Casey Means got asked in this hearing, I think by Tim Kaine specifically about this issue. And her answer was effectively like, well, it's complicated. And, you know, I don't think that's going to satisfy anyone. It's very clear what's going on here. You want the job. You want the access. You want the power. You want whatever else that entails. And so whatever principles you had previously, like many before you, like Tulsi Gabbard before you, you're willing to say, well, you know, I see it differently now. Now it's before it was clear. Now it's cloudy. Now it's complicated. to make um casey means and rfk jr defend roundup um is tantamount to when he made rfk jr like eat mcdonald's on the on the airplane it's like a gang initiation the only thing that could be worse like literally spraying roundup on the mcdonald's wasn't he very involved in like hudson river cleanup he founded the river keepers a tremendous spray the roundup on the McDonald's and throw it in the Hudson river. And you can bet RFK jr. And be there to be like, I understand why. Yeah. I, I support this now. This is fine. It's just no principle. And this is the way that a lot of people in DC think because they view it like, okay, but if I don't play the game and like do this thing, then whatever other plans Casey means as, or RFK jr. Has or whatever, I'm not going to have a chance to do those. And ultimately it's just a road, especially under Trump, who seems to delight in finding highly specific ways to humiliate his underlings and force them to abandon any core principles that they ever claim to hold that would give them some sort of independence from him. Like that is, I think, something that he very strategically, you know, attempts to do. Like he will identify, okay, what is this person's, like if they have some sort of principle they're trying to hold on to, how do I destroy that so that then they're just nothing but a loyalist to me because that's all he wants. And also it's useless and illegal to use the Defense Production Act for this purpose. He claimed that it's an emergency, like a national security emergency because we don't have enough food in the United States. And that this is to protect the food supply. Are you serious? We're starving here? We don't have enough food. We're okay. You didn't actually have to do this. That's not one of them. The quality of the food, we could talk about. The price of the food, we could certainly talk about. But just the quantity of it, that is not an issue I'm aware of. And Republican Congress is trying to push through legislation that would give fair immunity around these RFK Jr. kind of led challenges that got pushed back by environmental groups. They're now trying to put it into the farm bill. This is crazy. This is crazy. And so the environmental groups to the Mahama was like, what did you expect? Like, this is who they are. But, you know, RFK Jr., he literally sued them. I don't blame them for believing that this guy who sued them over this and won actually would fight for it. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of this really coalesced around the COVID and vaccines and, you know, that's where the that energy really coalesced this movement and moved it very quickly from, you know, it used to be that anti-vax sentiment was more located on the left. And, you know, that was some particular like left wing crankery around like like hippies and, you know, wealthy liberals in L.A. and stuff like that. And yeah, now they because of covid that all realigned like that cranky crank part of the the liberal movement realigned into the right. And so now I'd say they're kind of like I guess they're up for grabs, you know, and probably just kind of nihilistic at this point, to be honest with you. But I think there's an opening if you had a candidate on the Democratic side who was embracing, you know, Medicare for all and truly embracing changes to our food system and made that a priority and health and fitness, because it's not that there's no point there. Even with regard to like medical autonomy, it's not that there's no point there whatsoever. You know, I think obviously there's a bunch of junk science around vaccines that's just uttering complete nonsense. It's like you said on like measles and stuff. I mean, it's just utterly destructive. And we're beginning to see the devastating impact of more and more people opting out of taking any of these vaccines. But so I guess there's, you know, there's an opening there. We'll see. We'll see if anyone's able to, with a more legitimate program, capture their imagination in the future. All right. And also, so we went a little bit long. We're going to save the SAVE Act, the Make American Elections Great Again explainer. Maybe we'll hopefully get to that tomorrow. But up next, we've got Dave Dayen and David Hogg to talk about this incredible story of a candidate, a Democratic candidate in North Carolina who swore off APAC money and yet is getting APAC money anyway. We'll explain the various loops and loopholes that we're able to track this money through and getting into the race, which now is it's Nitalam versus Valerie Foucher. The election is on Tuesday in North Carolina. So stick around for that. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused Can you get someone to join your cult NLP was used on me to access my subconscious NLP aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. 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Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. which is participating in a lot of these primaries around the country. And let's put A2 up there, because David, Dan, and I have been doing a bunch of reporting on the kind of secret AIPAC primary effort going on in Illinois. And we'll talk about that kind of on the back half of this program. We're also going to be joined by Nita Alam, who I interviewed. I pre-taped an interview yesterday with her, and we'll attach that to the end of this project. So I want to start with actually NIDA because it's an incredible case here. Let's start with you, David Hogg, because you guys have endorsed NIDA Lum. So she ran in 2022 against Valerie Fushi. Do you say it Fushi or Fushier? Fushi. Fushi? Okay. I've been doing Fushi. It's tough. So she ran against Fushi in 2022. More than $2 million of APAC money comes into that race. And a bunch of crypto money as well, I think, from Sam Bankman Freed. Right. And she wins the race. Kind of close, but I think nine points or something. There's a nine point margin. With a crowded field. A crowded field. Since then, there's been a little redistricting. So it's actually a little bit more progressive. And my understanding is that if that 2022 race were run in this new district, she actually wins. And also, Fushi has done very little fundraising. I was checking it last night. I think she raised less than $550,000 for this cycle, which is for an incumbent. She was outraised by Nid Alam, who just launched her race in December. I mean, Fushi is freaking out so much. I got a text, a screenshotted text from Fushi to another member of Congress who's a friend of mine, where she's saying, this group of leaders we deserve is coming after me. Please help me out. Send me money. And of course, that member wasn't going to. But that was literally less than a week ago that she is currently texting members of Congress freaking out. And I think it shows the weakness that some of these incumbents are in. When you're propped up by APAC, you don't actually have to be that strong of a campaigner to win a lot of the time, especially if it's a crowded primary and you don't need to win by that much. In this case, we're dealing with a different district that also has had some of the most doge cuts of any congressional district in the country with a much more significant— This is Durham area. Yeah, it's the Raleigh-Durham-like area. And on top of that, the district, because of the redistricting, as you mentioned, is significantly more South Asian than it was previously as well. and we're dealing with an electorate that is incredibly fed up with the state of the party right now. That's interesting that she is going for members of Congress because that's like low-hanging fruit. Less than two weeks before her election. Less than two weeks. Well, it wasn't his members. It was publicly. So, you know, Fushi, like many candidates, particularly ones who are desirous of super PAC money, has a red box. And you know what a red box is. That's a section of their website where they sort of— literal red box around it where they sort of soft coordinate with super PACs and say, here's what voters need to know in this district. And she changed the language on her red box right before all this money came in. And previously it, it just had sort of a generic message. And then you could almost see the four alarm fire in the red box. It was voters need to immediately hear, that Nida Al-Lam is getting a million dollars from dark money and Valerie Fouchi won't be bought. Hilarious. Yeah, it was like such an urgent message. And now what we've seen in the week since is that those super PACs have delivered. Valerie Fouchi won't be bought. Please dump millions of dollars into this campaign. Please spend this money to tell people that I won't be bought. So we can put up E1 here. This is a tweet from Dave Dayen where you kind of spell out how badly she was actually getting outspent, which is extremely unusual for an incumbent until this AI safety super PAC, which is funded by Anthropic, came in. They've now dropped $1.3 million into the room. 1.6. Up to 1.6. It just keeps going. $1.6 million. And there's another pack that is called the Article One Pack that has come in. And it looks like so far they've publicly said that they're going to do $600,000. Might be more if they can make it work. And so I wanted to talk about this pack because this is an incredible one. So Fushi, she got the $2 million in APAC money. She then takes a bit of a turn after the genocide starts in Gaza and says that she endorses the Block the Bombs Act, which is kind of the Progressive Caucus' kind of more mild version of conditioning aid to Israel. And then Liz Sommer said she's not going to take AIPAC money. Yeah. I would not necessarily call it taking a turn as I would being turned. So there was a lot of grassroots pressure in the district. And the impetus for her saying, I reject this money, was a town hall in the district where she was confronted over meeting with Netanyahu on a congressional delegation and also the previous support for AIPAC money in 2022. and she said, well, look, I'm not doing that anymore. And I even heard behind the scenes that she was discouraging APAC from doing unbranded fundraisers for her. She actually was, at least for a time, probably when she thought she wasn't going to have a primary candidate, she for a time was really, seemed sort of committed to this. And now, why don't you take us to where we are today? Well, before we do the reveal of how the APAC money is getting into the district now. Why did you guys get in? Like, what made you get into this particular race? Because as you're mapping out the limited resources that you have, you know, it's sizable, but it's not infinite. What made you pick this one? Because I've heard the argument from some people that like, hey, Fushi, because she was able to be pressured at the grassroots level and she got better, like we should reward that by reelecting her and so that it tells other candidates. come our way and we'll welcome you rather than, you know what, we're going to take you out anyway. Ultimately, NIDA is going to be here for the long haul, a lot longer than FUSHI. NIDA also in this district, what we saw was that for us, it's not just a matter of whether or not somebody's taking money from APAC. Of course, we're going to support candidates who are against that, like NIDA. But it's also the fact that FUSHI was taking ridiculous amounts of corporate money as well. The crypto stuff. And what happened here was when Fushi was pressured on taking that corporate money, you know what her defense of it was? Was, well, these are corporations that are in my district, so I'm happy to take it, which is an absurd, you know, logic to use here. Like, let's press this further. Let's say that there is an ICE detention center that CoreCivic or GeoGroup, you know, runs in Fushi's district. Is she going to start taking money from private prisons? Yeah. Let's say that there is that Smith & Wesson. Let's say that Smith & Wesson is the same. Let's say that Smith & Wesson, the same company that manufactured the AR-15 used in Parkland moves to her district, the same AR-15s that are used around the country by mass shooters. If they're in her district, does that mean she's going to start taking money from Smith & Wesson? Like, where do you draw the line here? Because if it's all of a sudden saying, well, you know, I'm not going to take money from APAC, but I'm fine taking it from Lockheed Martin, for example, the people that are helping to make the arms that are being used against children in Gaza, is it really that much different in the first place? Can I say a quick thing about the AI aspect of this before we go into the APEC part? So Nid Alam gets into the race in December. Right. December 9th. Very late. We started working through July, by the way. A March primary, right? But almost at the exact same time, there is this commission that Hakeem Jeffries puts together on AI and the innovation economy. That was December 11th. Yeah. Almost the exact same time that... I think December 11th, she launched December 9th. He puts her on the commission. But it's already known at that point that she was going to get in. And Jeffries appoints Fushi as one of the co-chairs. Just three. Do you think that's because of her expertise in technology? Well, she represents the research triangle. It's clearly a high-tech area, an innovation-heavy area. But wait. So then she's bumping along, and there are these PACs that come out, you know, grassroots PACs like Leaders We Deserve, but also this PAC called American Priorities, which we revealed is specifically designed to counter APAC influence in a bunch of races. They put in almost $800,000 into this race. Backing Nita Lum. Backing Nita Lum. But last week, when FUSHU is being outspent 10 to 1, there's a poll that goes into the district, public policy polling, which is based in North Carolina, puts this poll out. I've seen the screenshots of it. It does head to head Alam versus Fushin. Those functionally are the only two candidates in this primary. But it also asks attitudes towards AI among members of the district. And we don't know who spent and it has not been released. And I've asked public policy polling many times if they're going to release this poll. But clearly, the amount of money being poured in, which has nothing to do with AI, these ads, of course, shows two things. Number one, that poll probably showed some bad news for Valerie Fusci. And number two, it probably showed some bad news on attitudes toward AI, or otherwise, they would have elevated that she's the head of the AI Commission. Right. And this is a good how Washington works story for people. Like, the House Financial Services Committee is referred to internally as a money committee, for instance, because you put people on there who are in vulnerable races and need to raise a lot of money. And because you're now regulating the banks and the private equity and hedge funds, you can then go to the banks and shake them down for money. And so what Akeem Jeffries did here is he created a task force that's going to write democratic policy on AI, puts her on it, also put Josh Gottheimer on it, who's a voracious, like, historic fundraiser. Who has also gotten money from the same AI-based hat. And is a Microsoft executive. Yeah. So, has those links. So, it's a signal. Like, give money to this person. Right. And I think you guys have been vindicated in your analysis here by the two-plus million dollars that she's already taken. Because people were like, no, she's doing better now. Right. Like, leave her alone. The real test of somebody's values is when they're under pressure. And we knew that if she was willing to accept this money when she was running in her first race, when she came under pressure, that there would be more super PACs, specifically these super PACs like the AI one, you know, this Article One stuff, everything like that, that came in and supported her. That if she really was committed to that, she wouldn't be taking that money and she wouldn't be facing such ferocious attacks that wouldn't be landing as much because it wouldn't be true. Right. So one other thing on that is that there's actually a live fight in the district around AI and specifically around an AI data center in a city, a small town called Apex that would use as much electricity as the entire town. And there's been pretty vociferous pushback on that and in other parts of the district where there's actually a moratorium in a place called Chatham County. But in APEX, hundreds of constituents sent an open letter to both candidates saying, will you oppose this data center, number one? And number two, will you not take any money from AI? And Nid Alam signed that and Valerie Fushi did not. And so I think there is a potential for backlash here, at least among people in APEX who are very agitated about the placement of this data center. Do you have a sense of how much this data center controversy in the district is playing in the race so far? I'm sure it plays a significant role. Obviously, when we did our own polling in the race, we didn't specifically ask about AI. We were trying to see, like, what is the pathway to victory? Because for leaders we deserve, we don't have an infinite amount of resources. We rely on 240,000 individual donors so that our candidates don't have to take corporate money so that we can truly back them and not have them unilaterally disarmed. We saw a pathway for NIDA. We didn't ask about AI. But what I will tell you, I think it's probably having just as much, if not a bigger impact, is the fact that you simultaneously are dealing with a district where it has had some of the most doge cuts of any district in the country. And it has a very high number. It's one of the youngest congressional districts in the country. It has a very high number of recent college grads that we know right now have an unemployment rate of around 45 percent. That feel like, and I'm sure that an AI data center is not going to jive well with them. Or the people who have their kids living at home right now after they graduate from UNC or whatever other schools are in the district because of automation and AI. Interesting data point on that. In 2022, they moved the primary to May. It was after colleges had let out for the summer. This time it's in March. The college students will be there and likely be voting. And that was one of our first questions when we were looking at NIDA back in June and July of 2025 was, how do we time this so that nobody else gets in the race so that we don't have another situation where the field is fractured and then it's way harder to have a pathway to victory? So it's just NIDA. And on top of that, are the college students actually going to be there? Because we've seen districts where, you know, in the past I've seen polling where a candidate looks like they're going to win because we account for a lot of college students turning out. And then it turns out, oh, they're on spring break. or, oh, you know, it's summer break, and then they don't turn out, and then the candidate loses. In this case, we looked at the polling, we looked at the redistricting, and we saw a huge opportunity to show and send a shockwave through the electoral system that if Nitto wins here, I think will really send a chill down the spine of a lot of people in the establishment who historically have relied on corporations, relied on AIPAC, and thought that they were safe because of that. And ironically, the thing that used to keep them the most safe is now the thing that makes them most vulnerable. We at Leaders We Deserve, our friends over at Justice Democrats, the Sunrise Movement and other groups, and obviously you all too, are working to make the biggest asset these groups have, which is their money, their biggest liability. That gets harder with the shell packs, obviously. But what I don't think people like Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer realize is that Gen Z and millennials are increasingly, we're almost a majority of the electorate at this point. I don't think they understand how much we vehemently hate politicians that take corporate money and appear to engage in insider trading. As a generation, we feel like the entire system has been bought and sold out from underneath us. And when these politicians take corporate money, I think for a lot of them, like Valerie Foushee, they're like, what? They're in my district. It's totally fine. They don't understand what that tells voters, which is that you are effectively being bribed by these corporations. You should talk about the article one thing. Yeah. And I mentioned that she raised $550,000. More than $250,000, that was PACs. Mostly corporate PACs, but some labor PACs as well. Foushee. Foushee, yeah. So, yes, to your point. Like even the tiny amount of money she raised, most of it was from from corporate PACs. But yeah, so let's get the reveal on this article. One thing is this is this is incredible. We reported in the past, you know, 2024, APAC was using APAC used a pro science PAC 314 action to like in Illinois, as Dan and I reported, they created these two fake PACs, brand new PACs. Elect Chicago women. Elect Chicago women. Big concern for APAC. Girl boss, gender parity. And affordable Chicago now. Like, APAC literally biting off of Mom Donnie's affordability letter. That's how unapologetic they are. They have to hide where their money's coming. Yeah, and then there's the... And then they were coordinating donors through these unbranded fundraisers. And if you looked at the candidates they were supporting in these Illinois races, Laura Fine in Illinois 9, Donna Miller in Illinois 2, and Melissa Bean in Illinois 8, they were sharing hundreds of donors. Hundreds of donors. So it also donated in the past to APAC. So it's just a coincidence though. So that's how you can figure out in Chicago and the Illinois area, that APAC is actually the one that's behind us. They say they're unapologetic about their participation, which is completely hiding it. Which it's totally illegal to participate in the political process. All we're asking is just do it with your chest out. Stand behind what you believe in. So that gets us to this Article 1 PAC. So its first spending was in New Jersey 11, which is the one that people probably remember. This is Annalilia Mejia and Tom Malinowski and the lieutenant governor of New Jersey, Tahesha Way. AIPAC was behind Way. And so AIPAC spent millions tearing down Malinowski. And as you know from watching this show, they accidentally elected Mejia. Article 1 came in boosting Way. And people are like, what is this Article 1 PAC? This is odd. So the second time it has ever spent any money is this $600,000 on behalf of FUSHI. um now i've been told by sources some with direct knowledge of this that this is a hakeem jeffries pack that hakeem is guiding this and there were some signals of that during the new jersey race if you look back at what how this article one pack was formed and who it's associated with a thing called article one victory that has ties to the democratic right congressional campaign committee, which is a leadership organization, essentially. Right. And ties to a bunch of swing district members of Congress who are the type of people who the DCCC supports. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. its crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts What do you do when the headlines don explain what happening inside of you I'm Ben Higgins. And if you can hear me is where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks. And we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius, like are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms and different houses and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Now, I've also been told by a source with knowledge of this that it is funneling APAC money. So instead of using these elect Chicago women PACs, Hakeem Jeffries is setting up a vehicle that is allowing APAC money to come through. And we know how they're doing it thanks to Matthew Eadie's reporting out of Chicago. So we can put up E3 here. And so let's follow along because this is fun to unpack. So Eadie obtained two emails that were privately sent by APAC on August 21st and then again on September 15th. And what they were doing is they were raising money for Laura Fine, who's running in this Illinois 09, this kind of Chicago area district. And so the emails said, please support Laura Fine. So now we know it's AIPAC because AIPAC is saying, please support Laura Fine and do it through this hidden web page that's called the, quote, Pro-Israel Network. So it's a link that you can't really find unless APAC sends you directly there. So then we put up E4 here. So basically, here are the emails. They run through. So this is him obtaining the actual emails if you didn't believe him the first time. And so put up E5 here. And so then you go through the FEC filings, and he found that more than 150 of FINE's donations, which were $300,000, it worked. They funneled the money to APAC. Often it's on the same day all this money comes in because it's a virtual fundraiser. And often, you know, Fine and other candidates are bundled in these emails and you see the same amount of money going to the same candidates on the same day. And so they're using and so you can put up the next put up the next element. So using this thing called Democracy Engine LLC, which sometimes shows up in the FEC to funnel to funnel the money through. right and so and i've seen these two by the way and there are dozens of these virtual fundraisers and this what they were so what this is generally being done for individual donations to the candidate itself what you're saying is that this is a similar mechanism that's being used right and we'll add this one in post because i didn't put it in into the rundown um and so what they're doing is they're they also a pack also sent directly to hakeem jeffries through this same process and using this democracy engine. So they funnel, um, so that there we have, then we'll, we'll put it up. Um, we'll put it up here. Uh, the, the Jeffries victory fund, um, APAC sends directly through this process to the Jeffries victory fund. So then it raises, and then Jeffries gives to article one pack and an article one pack gives, you know, donates there or there could be, there could be even another intermediary before it Well, there is because, I mean, what we know is the 350,000 that went to Tahitia Wray's race was raised from something called the Guzman Foundation, which no one's ever heard of and no one knows anything about. So it could be the that could be the fourth link in the chain. Right. So it's a fundraiser that goes to Jeffries. Jeffries then gives the Guzman Foundation or something, some other shell that gives to Article 1 PAC. and then that article on tech raises the money for the ads or does the ads. It's a really dumb way of going about it. Like so overcomplicated and convoluted in general. But it makes it hard to track and hard for people like us to understand where the money is actually coming from. Absolutely. I mean, that's the whole point. One thing to note, too, that I think people should understand about why APAC can have such an effect as well when they bundle money for candidates as they're doing across Illinois. You know, and I got to say, Illinois 9 is getting a lot of attention, obviously. Cat's amazing. But there's also Robert Peters, who's getting massively attacked on all sides by all special interests. He's got the trifecta of hell coming after him, basically. That's in Illinois 2. In Illinois 2. And in that district, what we see is that the polling there, that it's really interesting. Because you have Illinois 9 with an electorate with way more, you know, people with masters and PhDs. It's like Evanston. Yeah, exactly. And then you have the second district that is a lot lower income, has less higher rates of education. And the polling there moves much faster after AIPAC comes in and spends than it does in Illinois' ninth congressional district. But the point that I wanted to get at is that this bundling of money that they do, the reason it can have so much of an impact is because candidates, when they're spending on TV, get candidate rate. That is legally required to be the lowest rate. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my understanding. That's right. It has to be the lowest rate of any ad. Even less than that. Sometimes 10 times as much for a super PAC. But if it's a super PAC where somebody says, okay, I'm going to give you $100,000 to United for Democracy Project, whatever. That money, those ads cost twice as much if it's an independent expenditure on broadcast or on TV a lot of the time. So that's why it has so much of an impact with that bundling of money. And it gives the candidates the plausible deniability to be like, oh, I didn't know that this was APAC, which is obviously bullshit. but it gives them that ability because it's not APAC directly giving them that money. And it goes even further. It also puts a dollar value on the secrecy that APAC cherishes because what they could have done is use Democracy Engine to send money directly to Valerie Fushi, for instance. And then she needed the money and then she could have gotten the preferential ad rates and done exactly how she wanted to do, but she had pledged not to take APAC money. And these are these kinds of unbranded fundraisers are the exact things that she apparently rejected. She said don't do that. That's what I was told. So instead – Because she was mindful of the backlash. Right. So instead they sent it to Jeffries. That's right. Who then loops it back around to Article 1. And so it's less impactful because it's more expensive to run those ads. But it allows to keep this wall of deniability up. It's important to note too to think about what this means from Jeffries' position as well. This is, you know, I think, of course, there's the APAC role here, as there is in so many of these races around the country. But you also got to put yourself in Jeffrey's shoes. His job is to try to protect his members so that he can keep his majority that he needs to be able to get to continue to, you know, be Speaker of the House. And I think in combination with the attacks on all of these incumbents, what he's trying to do in this race, what's fascinating to me about it is how late the spending is right now. It came in so late. It didn't come in a month ago when it could have actually had, I think, way more of an impact. It started coming in way later when presumably they saw Paul Rutt in that show that Fushi was toast. We're talking about $2.2 million in the final 11 days of the race. That's $200,000 a day. Nothing but these ads on TV. I think what we're seeing here is Jeffrey is trying to show his other members, look, I'm going to back you so that even if Fushi does lose, they feel like, well, I still want to vote for him because he's going to help protect me. because once you're in, theoretically, he wants to protect you if you're going to vote for him. What's interesting about this whole dynamic, though, is if there are so many people that end up getting defeated by these incumbent challengers, every one of our incumbent challengers at Leaders We Deserve is supporting, outraised their opponent last quarter. And Justin Pearson outraised his opponent, I think it was nine to one, against Steve Cohen. So that is obviously getting their attention. But what will be interesting to see out is two things. One, of these incumbents who win, How does Jeffries try to reconcile with them, right? Because he obviously wants to continue being speaker. And how can they use that potentially to try to fend off future primary challenges from groups like APAC? Obviously, there's a trade to be made there. But on top of that, it's also a question of with the VRA coming up, with that whole Supreme Court case, how does that end up changing Jeffries' coalition if a lot of these districts that were created by the Voting Rights Act no longer exist anymore? I just think this is what makes the Alam race so important because there's now a coalition. I mean, Alam in 2022 got zero dollars in outside spending from independent groups. This time she's got $1.5 million. And it's sort of cobbled together with a bunch of different organizations. WFP is in there. Coalition is coming together. Working Families Party, Justice Democrats, this American Priorities Group, Leaders We Deserve. How much do you drop in this race, do you think? So I'm on the hard side, but last I checked in, there was about 250,000. Okay, right. So, you know, there's parity here. There's some competitiveness here that we did not see in the last two cycles. There really, it was just sort of, you know, lambs to the slaughter, if you're talking about these organizations. And there was an attempt to do political education around this money is coming from APAC and this is what it means, or this money is coming from crypto. So but now it's there's still that. But there's also and we've got your back with some some actual firepower here. So that's why I think this race is so important. And if Alam still prevails, despite this last minute rush, it really does change the understanding and the conception of, you know, what these races are going to look like going forward. Massively. I mean, it's I think that the sense that these incumbents have such a sense of entitlement. I think it's actually a huge asset for the progressive movement, ironically, of these challengers because they are so self-absorbed and obsessed with themselves that they tell themselves, I'm so great at being a member of Congress. I can't be defeated. That's what then results in them getting cocky and not fundraising. That's what results in them going out there and being like, oh, it's fine. Like these challengers, I don't really need to worry about them. And then all of a sudden people like Valerie Fouchier have an oh shit moment, you know, two weeks before the election and they're texting their members of Congress. It's a Joe Crowley kind of situation. Exactly. Exactly. And what we're seeing, too, is because they're so focused on themselves, we've seen people like Steve Cohen compare Justin Pearson's challenge of him to Pearl Harbor, for example. Then we go out there and we see somebody like Stephen Lynch go out there at a doge protest talking about all the doge cuts against VA. Theoretically a good thing, right? When somebody heckles him and says that you need to do more to fight back against Donald Trump, he says, I'm the member of Congress, not you, me. If you want to make that decision, you run for Congress. Leaders We Deserve is happy to answer that call and light a fire under the asses of the Democratic establishment to force our party to be better. And the great thing about this moment is, unlike in 2018, when the progressive movement was much more spread out, it was much less coordinated, in many of these races, we are in lockstep. And we have managed to grow enough small-dollar support from the movement. And when we do come together, when Justice Dems comes in, when Leaders comes in, when American Priorities comes in, when all these other groups come together and we carefully select these races, we're not setting the precedent like, oh, progressives can't win. We're setting the precedent that when we come together, we win and we are a real serious threat. So you better not take corporate money. You better not take support for APAC or you're going to have a hell of a primary season ahead of you. It's going to be an interesting race on Tuesday. That's for sure. Last thing I wanted to ask you guys about is this news that apparently the reason that the Democratic National Committee doesn't want to release this autopsy that they did of the 2024 election is that it found that the Democratic support for the genocide in Gaza had a net negative effect. We don't know, though, whether or not that was considered to be decisive by this autopsy or not because they're not revealing it. So we actually, Breaking Points and Dropside, we'll put it together. Petition, we'll put it down at the bottom of the show notes here, just calling on the DNC just to release this thing. Like, let us see it. Like, we're not telling you what to think about it, but let us see the autopsy, preferably leak it to us first. But just make it public. Have you had any meetings with the DNC about this issue or this autopsy? And what can you tell us about what you understand about this analysis and why they're keeping it private? Well, what I can tell you is two things. One, Ken Martin campaigned on releasing this. Yeah, and you were his. And I was the vice chair to him. I know that because I heard him say it a million times at all of the million forums that we had to do when we were running as vice chairs and chairs and everything like that. So this is not something where it's like Ken said, I'm going to do, by the way, they always refuse to call it an autopsy report because we're not dead yet is what they would say. They call it an after action report. Fine. Give us the after action report. So that's one thing. It's not like Chair Martin went out there and said, I'm going to do this thing, but it's going to be kept private. He actually said, I'm going to release this and we're going to know why we lost. So release it. Don't go out there and claim you're going to do one thing and then not do it. The second thing is, I will tell you, at our first meeting in the building of the DNC with all of the officers who were elected and everything, we're going through basically some of the most preliminary findings of why we lost the election, common sense things, as you can imagine, that we're in there. And one thing that I brought up in there was like, I said, look, I know that you guys don't want to talk about this, almost certainly, but we have to acknowledge what happened with Gaza and the fact that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, especially young people on college campuses, were losing their minds incredibly upset, understandably, over what was happening. And I know you don't want to talk about it, but we have to. And I have to believe that if they're actually writing an autopsy report, right, they have to talk about that. There has to be some part of it, and they should release it to have transparency. I mean, we're at rock bottom right now. We just lost to Donald Trump for the second time. What else do we have to lose? We might as well give the transparency to our voters of what actually happened here. But here's the problem. Our party is addicted to losing. Our party, and what I mean by that in particular, is that people like Hakeem Jeffries, people like Chuck Schumer, people I would argue like Ken Martin as well, would much rather keep basically everything as similar as possible to keep themselves in their own positions of power, whether it's in the Senate or in the House or the DNC or wherever else it is, instead of actually addressing who we are as a party to get us into a governing majority. Because if we want to win back the White House, if we want to win back the House, if we want to win back the Senate, there is no pathway to doing that without winning back young Americans that historically have voted for Democrats. And if we don't offer them something new and don't just change our messaging, but change who we are and address our courage problem as a party where we're just constantly afraid of our own shadow, we're not going to change that. I mean, you're talking about the iron law of institutions where, you know, your status within the institution is more important than the status of the institution within the broader ecosystem. You know, I think that the Democratic Party weirdly discounts authenticity and honesty as a virtue and a value that voters might respond to. And this is a perfect example of just, we don't want to be honest with ourselves, let alone honest with the rest of the electorate about our own failings. And it just breeds this notion that you have something to hide. And it becomes a bigger problem than if you just rip the Band-Aid off and say, yes, this is why we had a problem and we need to be honest about this. Yeah. I mean, just release the damn report. Who knows how much of an impact it really will even have to begin with. But if you're going to say you're going to release it. And we know we have a trust problem in the party. Just release it. We're already at rock bottom. Just show us what happened. How much worse can it get? The only way upward from here is... But the obvious problem is that we have the, presume, if Democrats win in November, Speaker of the House laundering money through a bunch of donors who don't want to have report released. And that's what's going on. A bunch of Republican billionaire donors, too. That's incredible. Exactly. Yeah. That's a lot of it. We're talking about a lot of the APAC. There's a fascinating moment in the Laura Fine race where she was at a campaign forum and they asked the question, did you have you taken money from Trump donors? And of course, everybody in the race, a very busy field, said no. And Laura Fine very sheepishly goes, yes. She did a lot. Yeah. Good for her. Yeah. Honesty. Right. All right, David. It's great to have you guys by. David Dayen, executive editor of the American Prospect, David Hogg, with Leaders We Deserve, and former ousted vice chair of DNC. I'm coming back with a vengeance. You sure are. Excellent. Well, great to have you guys both here. All right. Thanks. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. its crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits he stood trial for murder and got acquitted the biggest mind game of all nlp might actually work this is wild listen to mind games on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts what do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you. I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff, identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore, loss that changes you, purpose when success is an enough, peace when your mind won't slow down, faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the is-ness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must-listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. So Ryan, that's sort of a perfect setup for your interview with the candidate herself. Yes, so if you're just coming to this fresh, there's a good conversation that we just had with David Dayen and David Hogg about this race and the dynamics around it and others throughout the country. You can also just listen to this interview. We taped it yesterday. Since we recorded this interview, I actually did a lot of more reporting about the money that we talk about in this conversation. But the gist of it is here. This is Nid Alam running in North Carolina 4th District The election is this coming Tuesday Joining us to discuss more of this is Nita Alam a Durham County commissioner who is up for election in North Carolina 4th District this coming Tuesday if I not mistaken Nita, welcome to Breaking Points. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you so much for having me back, Ryan. Yeah, so for folks who missed our conversation last time we spoke about, you've jumped into a second race against Valerie Fushi, who's now the incumbent. You and her squared off in 2022. In that election, APAC threw, I don't remember if they did, I think they did it through their main super PAC, United Democracy Project, put more than $2 million into the race. And they ended up pushing Valerie Fushi past you by about four points or something like so. So very, very close race. How much? Nine. Oh, nine points. I remember it being a little bit closer. Nine points is still pretty close for getting more than $2 million dropped on your head down the stretch of the election now. So recently, Fushi has been named to this three-person Democratic task force that is charged with crafting what House Democratic policy is supposed to look like when it comes to artificial intelligence. And the way that these kinds of things work is that when a new issue arises, you kind of go outside of the committee system. I don't know why they even still have committees. Maybe you can tell me if you get back to Congress, if you get to Congress, you can tell me what committees even do. Because whenever anything comes up, they create a new committee, even though they've got ones that have been operating, you know, semi-continuously for hundreds of years at this point. And so the three members on that committee are Fushi and they were appointed by Hakeem Jeffries just unilaterally. So it would be Fushi, Ted Lieu, who's a progressive in California. Almost every California Democrat is pretty friendly to the AI industry. And Josh Gottheimer, who is a New Jersey Democrat, who is kind of notorious for being friendly to whatever industry it is that he's regulating, Whether he's on the Financial Services Committee, he's taken more money from banks, hedge funds and private equity than anybody else. He's known as like an almost comically voracious fundraiser. So two industry folks plus then a kind of what you would call, I guess, a normal Democrat, Valerie Fushi. So all of a sudden, Fushi started getting upwards of $700,000 in support from this super pack that is backed by Anthropic, which presents itself as the AI safety super pack, which kind of goes against, I guess, the AI danger companies, the ones who are a little bit more reckless. Because Anthropic, whenever you hear anything in the AI world about some of the dangers, it's usually because Anthropic said, hey, look, be careful. Like our AI just did this terrible thing, whereas the other AIs do the terrible thing and don't tell you about it. Gottheimer himself used to work for, used to be a Microsoft executive. But there's also a data center fight going on in North Carolina. So can you tell us first about that? Who is trying to put this data center in the district? What is the status of it and how relevant and how kind of resonant of an issue is this right now in the district for your voters, both the county commission level, but also in this race? Yeah, absolutely. And before I answer that, I also just want to note that like Anthropic is also known for its collaboration with Palantir on government contracts with ICE and CBP and even in the United States illegal invasion invasion into Venezuela. It was anthropic technology that was used in that. Right. And they they recently asked a question to the Pentagon about whether or not their technology was used. And it appears it was in the in the kidnapping of Maduro. And they hinted that they they don't like that. And now the Pentagon is saying that they might call anthropic a supply chain risk and not allow it to be used because Anthropic is saying, we don't want our technology to be used for autonomous weaponized drones. But they're already partners with Palantir, which is one of the most, I don't know, whatever word you want to use for what Palantir does. So it's kind of late to be drawing lines, perhaps, but maybe they're saying it's not. Anyway, exactly. So they're close with Palantir, but go ahead. There's so much background here that we have to unpack. Yeah. And also the fact that two members of this AI task force that was just created in December and Arvizan Fushi was appointed like literally right at the same time that we launched our campaign. And now that is very interesting. Was it before or after? I think it was like a day or two before. Right. But people knew you were running. Yeah. At that point. So that's. And we. Just to tell people why that's interesting, the reason people often get put on these committees is because they're in need of fundraising help. And if you put them, say, on the financial services committee, then banks and hedge funds and private equity, they're going to shower them with money. So they always put the vulnerable freshmen and sophomores kind of on that committee. You put somebody on the task force, they become a magnet then for AI money. So if they're Fushi raised very little of her own money, so she needed help in a reelection. Putting her on this committee would be an excellent way to signal to the A.I. world. You need to come in with hundreds of thousands of dollars and and shower her down the stretch. So go ahead. That's that's interesting. And like this lobby in this super PAC jobs and democracy were truly about regulation and protecting the individual consumer and individual person from the dangers of A.I. then why would they not be supporting the candidate in this race myself, who has actually been clear about my stance on national moratorium on AI data centers until we have proper regulations in place so that we don't have this uncontrolled growth that's only benefiting tech billionaires bottom line at the expense of our residents. And like you mentioned, there's one in this district itself in Apex that is being considered and brought forward to the Apex Town Council. And we don't even know which company, which tech company it is that is going to be running this. The way that they come in is that they have this other company name as the developer. And then they try to get their permits, try to get the approvals, everything. And then after it's built, the tech company, the tech giant comes in because they know it's going to be a lot harder for, you know, meta Google to be coming in and saying like, hey, we're going to have this massive data center that's going to be the size of like multiple super Walmarts coming into your backyard. And residents are terrified. They're coming out and they're speaking up against it. They're saying they don't want this in their backyard. And for our current representative to ignore those voices and in response take hundreds of thousands of dollars from the very same industry that her constituents and residents are rallying against is extremely disappointing to them. And we see residents across the district concerned about multiple factors of this data center. We're being told by Meta that's spending millions of dollars to convince us that these AI data centers are going to create jobs. We know that's false. AI is killing thousands of jobs across the country. We're seeing the amount of water usage. They're spending millions of gallons of water every single year, every single day, not even a year, every single day to cool these systems. And then Duke Energy is already renegotiating and hiking up our electricity prices as consumers, as residents, to accommodate the infrastructure needs and capacity for these data centers. Why are those costs? Why are residents having to pay an AI tax? You're a week away from the election, basically. And at least 700,000 is coming from the AI company. There'll be some other super PACs we can talk about in a moment. Throwing down again, it's like a repeat of 2022. How do you get the messages that I've seen so far from this AI super PAC are not in the Democratic line of like, hey, here's why it would be good if we have a data center here. And here's why we need good regulations on and federal regulations on a AI. And this is why Valerie Fushi is good for for us and good for you. Like that would be one thing if they were making the case on behalf of their own industry. They're actually the ads just seem to be saying nice things about Valerie Fushi. So far, it doesn't seem like they've gone negative on you, but they're saying vote for Valerie Fushi because she's a good, you know, she'll be a good member of Congress. It's just kind of raising her popularity and her name identification and not but not telling you that it's an AI company, an AI coalition that is behind her. So how how are you doing in getting the message out to people that says and how do you do this as a candidate in this era that says, OK, this is AI money like this. Like whatever they're saying is that's nice and interesting, but they have their own agenda and interests here. Are you able to get that message out? Are people following the race close enough that they're picking up what the AI coalition is kind of putting down here? Yeah, absolutely. And we see this happening with super PAC spending all across the country is that they never actually run their ads on the issue that they're lobbying for because they know that their issue is unpopular with the average person. We saw this in 2022 with AIPAC and DMFI. They didn't run any ads about Israel or Palestine because they know that this is not kitchen table issues that folks are like, yeah, we want more taxpayer dollars to be going to fund war. Just like residents now are not going to say, yes, we want to pay an AI tax to support these data centers. So they have to put messaging out there to just promote candidates that they know are going to be softer and easier on them or be supportive of their causes, even though it's against what their residents want. And the way that we're counteracting this is by we had a press conference on Saturday to call it out. And we actually had one of the leaders of the community members at Apex who came out and spoke at the press conference. And because there were over 300 residents of Wake County that signed on to a letter calling on all us candidates in this district, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, everyone, to take a pledge to not accept money from the AI lobby. and I'm the only candidate in this race that has taken that pledge and in response to over 300 residents, Representative Foushee's response has been, hey, I want to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from them. And they said very clearly at the press conference, she said, if you take this money, we are not going to forget. And residents, even if, you know, hopefully she doesn't, but if Representative Foushee is victorious in this election, her residents, she's not listening to them. She is going completely against what they are asking for right now. And so we are messaging, making sure that residents know how this AI data center is going to impact them, what the AI tax means, how a moratorium is going to help make sure that there's proper regulations put in place on big tech. And so you have a fairly engaged district, if I, you know, right? I mean, you got a lot of people who are paying close attention. So maybe it will get out. Like maybe people are engaged enough. Last night, President Trump raised the salience of the issue again. He talked about this in the State of the Union. He seems to recognize the political peril that he's in with the amount of money that he's shoveled at AI and the backlash to data centers. And he said, I promise you from now on, you know, these data centers are going to produce their own power. But to me, if you're in a rural area and somebody tells you, hey, we're going to put this gigantic data center in your backyard, people are like, I don't know about that. And you say, oh, wait, we're going to make it even better. We're going to put a power plant right next to it. People are going to be like, well, I mean, okay, I'm glad. That doesn't sound better. I don't want a power plant also. So and they're using like these centers are using these backup diesel generators that are emitting toxic fumes that are polluting our water and airways. And they're happening not just in rural communities. The one in Apex is like literally in the backyard of our residents. So there are family members that they're scared of how it's going to impact the air quality for their children. How it's going to impact the water quality that is coming into their taps. And so what about AIPAC? So Valerie Fouchi, she, after getting that two plus million dollars, has been critical of Israel. She endorsed the Back the Bombs Act, which is the Progressive Caucuses bill that still allows a significant amount of weapons to go to Israel, but does block. block, did I say back the bombs, block the bombs, until it does block some weapons and is something of a red line for AIPAC. AIPAC is not somebody who comes in and is okay with some nuance on the question. They say they want unconditional aid, and they mean it. And if you don't support unconditional aid, they'll come after you. Tom Malinowski, former member of Congress, who said there should be some modest conditions on some aid, some military aid to Israel. They spent millions of dollars in New Jersey against him and accidentally or perhaps elected a progressive, Annalia Mejia. Instead, it seems like that same super PAC is interested in your race now. Is there enough time for them to impact the race? And what are you seeing from this shadowy super PAC? Now, we're seeing that money is starting to drop in at the last minute. and it's showing what we've known is that this race is going to be very close. And quite frankly, the establishment and the status quo is scared because they see that the electorate is sick and tired of being told to wait for change, to wait for relief. They're sick and tired of their taxpayer dollars being used to fund endless wars, to have to pay an AI tax. This district is working families just like a majority, vast, vast majority of this country is. And so these super PACs are dumping in the last minute money because it's a desperate Hail Mary to try to save the seat for the establishment. And we're countering that by making sure that, you know, people know who is behind this money that is coming in, making sure that folks know that the only reason this money is coming in is because they're scared of us as working families, as individuals stepping up and having our voices be heard and taking on these corporate interests and taking on the big tech, the war machine. And unfortunately, we're seeing the same entities and the shady tactics that were used in New Jersey. They're being used in Illinois, coming into this district, the safest blue seat in North Carolina. Are they going negative on you or are they boosting Valerie at this point, the New Jersey APAC-looking super PAC? So none of the PACs have gone negative on me. Unfortunately, Representative Fushi herself, her campaign ran a negative attack ad yesterday that we had to actually issue our own cease and desist. And they took it down, which is extremely unusual. Yes, CBS 17 took it down. I don't believe the other, I'm not sure if the other stations have taken it down yet. Representative Fushi still has her messaging, false messaging attacking me on her website. of as last time I checked it. And, you know. It was a weird false message. The false message was claiming you didn't file a financial disclosure when you did. So it's like, it's a strange. It's also, it goes to show that there's not much that they can, or anything that they can use against me. She didn't do her paperwork properly. Oh, wait, actually she did. Yeah, and if you look at my paperwork, what's terrifying about it is something that's terrifying to all residents. It's full of student debt. And that's what most people in this country are dealing with. And if you are looking at my generation and the next, we are more likely to be living with student debt for the rest of our lives than we are to be able to have a mortgage, to be able to achieve the American dream that we were raised was possible for us. Especially Durham, I would suspect. Now, on the flip side, what makes this race unusual is that you have a shadowy super PAC that launched on your side. It appears from the reporting I've been able to do that this is a kind of Bernie Sanders adjacent. It's not from Bernie Sanders himself, but people in the Bernie Sanders kind of AOC wing of the party have raised millions of dollars to do their own super PACs to come in and try to defend people who are getting hit by super PACs. um, from the other direction, the last I saw that they, they had spent a half a million, uh, or were planning to spend half a million in the race. I don't know if they've, they've come in with any more, um, since then, but is that, um, is that help? Have you, have you gotten much of a word on who is that, who that is, what they want? Um, and is it having an effect on the ground? Are you noticing that having that cavalry come in and defend you on the other side is changing people's understanding of the race. Yeah, I mean, I don't know who the individual members are since we don't collaborate with these IE groups, but I've seen the same reporting that you have that they released, I believe it was like last Thursday, that said that these were individuals who are coming up and supporting candidates who are against endless funding of wars, who stand up and want to take a stance because they're sick and tired of seeing corporations and right-wing special interest groups like APAC buying seats and electing people who are just going to be yes men for war and corporate tax breaks and cuts instead of for the average working people. And so, and these are groups and donors who, from what I've seen from the reporting, have supported progressive candidates all across the country. And, you know, I'm grateful for the organizations like Justice Democrats, Working Families Party, Leaders We Deserve, Sunrise Movement, who have been leading the charge and lifting up progressive voices. And it's sad that we unfortunately live in this political system that endless amounts of money have to be spent. And it's sad that in the safest blue seat, our representative is taking money from the same folks who fund Trump. You know, she's running this campaign saying that she's going to take on Trump and his authoritarianism. How are you going to do that when you're accepting and cashing checks from the very same people who put him into office? If we truly want to hold Trump accountable, then we need to hold the corporations and these right-wing billionaires and these special interest groups that put him into office accountable and get them out of our political systems. Because as long as they have us and our U.S. government in a chokehold, Trump is not going to be the end of our nightmare. That's just the first step for them. All right. Well, Nidolam County Commissioner running in North Carolina's 4th District. Mail-in voting has already started. The election will be next Tuesday. Is that March 1st? Is that March 4th? March 3rd. So early voting ends Saturday on the 28th. And then election day is on March 3rd. All right. Well, we'll be following this and we'll be back in touch on election. election day or the day after. But thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it, Ryan. All right. That does it for us. We will be back tomorrow for, I think it's going to be yet another commie takeover tomorrow because Emily is unavailable. Sagar is unavailable. So prepare yourselves, comrades. People come here for both sides. You're going to get the Bolshevik side and the Menshevik side. And we're going to be totally fair. Yeah. All right, guys. Have a great day. We'll see you then. See you. Hi, it's Jill Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend, Krista Williams. 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