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[upbeat music] It's Quinn.

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Maybe you're like me, and sometimes you just spiral out, not just because everything is a lot all of the time, but because some part of you actually wants to do something about it.

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But, I mean, holy shit, where to start, right? Great news. We built an app for that. It's called What Can I Do? Even better news, it's free and it's fast. It takes just three clicks to start unfucking the world.

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Visit whatcanido.earth to get started for free.

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[upbeat music] Maybe you feel like you're already giving it all you've got.

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You look around and things are tough out there.

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You, our listeners and readers and viewers and users across the country and across the world, you're demanding more examples of fight and progress you can actually see and touch and feel.

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And in these conversations, in this series, in partnership with our very best friends at Run for Something, we're gonna give you exactly what you asked for.

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Each of these episodes features two guests, both sourced from the Run for Something pipeline and graduating classes, the next generation of leaders, so basically people younger than me, which is... It's a low bar.

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Anyways, in each episode, first I'll introduce one young elected official at the state or local level who's made real measurable progress on an issue facing more Americans than ever before.

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And then in the same episode, in a later conversation, I'll introduce a bright-eyed candidate currently running for a state legislature or Senate, governor, mayor, city council, school board, who is similarly hell-bent on attacking the same issue in their own hometown or state.

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And look, for all you know, one of these could end up being yours, or it might be something you can learn from.

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Because you and I will find out together what they're working on and why, and where they've made progress, and where they've struggled, and how their exact tactics and strategies and blueprints or whatever can be transferred to other schools and towns and cities and states across the country.

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So look, if these conversations inspire you, I would love for you to do two things when we're done. Because to be clear, it's not these people's job to save us. After you listen, it's your turn.

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Number one, find out what office you or some young person you respect can run for at runforwhat.net, and that's in partnership with our friends at Run for Something.

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And number two, you can find and support with your money or your body incredible candidates endorsed by Run for Something and other incredible organizations we respect and work with at whatcanido.earth.

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And last, number three, because yes, there's always three, please share these conversations. Lord knows if you need this and I need this, which is why I'm doing it, many, many more people need this.

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First up today, our topic, gun control. Yeah. As The Onion posts once a month, "There's no way to prevent this," says only nation where this regularly happens.

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But there are ways to prevent it, not just school shootings or homicides or suicides or even accidental shootings in the home when a gun and ammo aren't stored safely or even fucking stored at all.

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We just need people in office who aren't cowards because we know what works.

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And it's a lot of different pieces like everything else we talk about here, and we have to keep chipping away at all of them everywhere we can, at the national level, at the state and local levels, at corporate levels, whatever, wherever we can.

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'Cause the way this country is constructed from federalism on down, it's a complex beast, right? Elections are complicated, education funding, gun control.

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And so again are these myriad examples of municipalities and county boards, and some places you get super powered mayors, in others mayors who are kinda like a first among equals type of thing from city council.

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But there's always something those folks can do, and there's always something you can do, always. And my two guests today are absolutely meeting the moment. Introducing our incumbent, Missouri State Legislator Ray Reed.

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Endorsed by Run for Something in 2024, Ray Reed was in the news just this week for a bold sit-in protest, refusing to leave the floor of the Missouri House for over 100 hours after Republicans there attempted to convene a special session and push through redrawn legislative maps at the behest of Donald Trump.

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Ray is a St. Louis native, and he brings a wealth of experience in Missouri politics, having collaborated with notable Democratic leaders like former Governor Jay Nixon and Senator Claire McCaskill.

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Next, I'll talk to our candidate, Jas Hampton. Jas is running for mayor of Minneapolis because he loves the city. It's not just where he lives, it is who he is.

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He is not only a lifelong Twin Cities resident and a husband there, he's the father of three Minneapolis public school students. He has been an attorney there, an educator there, and a social justice entrepreneur.

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He has freed the wrongfully convicted. He has worked on advanced affordable housing, protected civil rights, and created safer communities.

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Now he's ready to bring fresh leadership and unite Minneapolis after a hell of a decade.

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So there we go, two amazing humans fighting for gun control in very different places in the only nation where this regularly happens. Let's find out what it means for their hometowns and yours.

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[upbeat music]My first guest today is Missouri State House member Ray Reed. Ray's had a busy few weeks for sure. Ray, introduce yourself for the people. Hey, guys.

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I am Ray Reed, born and raised here in the suburbs of St. Louis.

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Represent Missouri's eighty-third house district that encompasses the communities of Brentwood, Maplewood, Bridgeton Heights, Shrewsbury, Affton, and I'm so happy to be here today. Awesome.

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These thirty-minute things are very new to me, Ray. Usually, I get to just kinda go off however necessary for an hour, but I don't wanna abuse your time, so we're gonna try to keep it semi-focused here.

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We're gonna talk a little bit about gun control today 'cause obviously that is a thing affecting everybody everywhere at this point, whether you've been directly exposed to it or not, wherever you live.

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It's hard to miss. Whether you got kids in schools, doesn't matter. It's ever present, and obviously Missouri's got a lot going on there. Let's talk about you for a moment here. Why did you run for office?

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You know, I guess this goes back to shortly after President Biden won in twenty-twenty. You know, I sat at a bonfire in a backyard with a bunch of friends. It's kind of a Missouri thing, I guess- Mm-hmm...

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in the fall time, just backyard bonfires, and we just talked about the issues we care about. You know, we care about reproductive freedom. We care about the environment.

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We care about making sure that college is more affordable. And of course, to make sure that, you know, that when folks get out of school, they're walking into an economy that works for everyone and not just the wealthy.

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And we decided, you know, why not me? Why not someone like me who represents their communities in more ways than one?

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And what motivated me to run for this race in particular was that I had this just strong feeling of what my presence in that Capitol building could mean for young people.

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I always wanted folks to see themselves in their government every day I walk into that building.

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So that's really what motivates me is the idea that just a young kid can see themselves in their government, and that makes this entire thing worth it. I love that.

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How do we get all your other friends who are around the bonfire to run as well? It sounds like they're in. Like, what do we have to do? [upbeat music] Imagine this.

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You get some goddamn notification about something you give a shit about, and you just wanna stop what you're doing, whatever you're doing, and actually do something about it.

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You can't just live out here on the receiving end of these things. So you head to whatcanido.earth, and boom, right in front of you is our new intelligent starter action section.

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Front and center, exactly the action you want and need to take right now. Head to whatcanido.earth right now to check it out because the world won't unfuck itself.

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[upbeat music] Everyone has a role to play, and I'm so glad all my friends plugging in in their own special ways to find their roles. Hell yeah, man. That is it.

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No matter how you prefer to show up, there's things we got for you to do, for sure. Well, we appreciate you stepping up and doing that.

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It does really matter that folks can see themselves in office literally at any level. But man, the state and local levels, of which there are myriad, matter more than ever, hundred percent.

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So you're endorsed by Run for Something in twenty-twenty-four. How were they helpful to you? Oh, it gave such a credibility to the upstart campaign.

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You know, I had run for office in twenty-twenty two for Congress, and Run for Something does amazing work on the ground.

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So I couldn't get their endorsement then, but it meant the world to have their endorsement when I ran in twenty-twenty four because they give you the tools you need to succeed on the ground.

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They can connect you with community leaders. They can give you just the campaign how-tos of to running an effective ground game for your campaign.

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You know, for someone who's just walking into running for office, Run for Something will give you everything that you didn't even know you needed, and they're such a blessing. Oh, that's awesome, man. Yeah, it really is.

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Whether you are someone, like, contributing from afar and contribute to this campaign, great. What does that mean?

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Or if you're someone who's running or a new campaign manager who's never been a campaign manager involved, like you said, the unknowns are far larger than the knowns, where you go, "Oh, yeah, I guess someone does have to do this," right?

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"We do have to cover these bases." So definitely helpful to have that sort of like a starter pack, right? People who this is what they do all day is they get new folks going. That's awesome. All right.

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I wanna talk about gun control. Obviously, broadly in the US, I don't really have to say much more.

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But if I can just set the table, and please correct me everywhere I'm wrong here for where Missouri stands right now, which seems pretty similar to most of the adjacent states.

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So permitless carry for almost ten years now. Stand your ground was expanded, I think, in the same bill. You don't have to retreat when you're in a place. No red flag law. No universal background checks.

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No safe storage rules. Localities can't do much because there's pretty heavy state preemption, which Virginia's got a fair amount of that as well. But again, that's not too different from Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas,

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folks like that. And as everybody knows, well, maybe everybody doesn't know at this point, but I think twenty-eight states, twenty-nine states, something like that now allow permitless concealed carry.

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So definitely not alone in that. It's not a trend anyone's excited about. Well, not anyone who listens to this show is excited about. But talk to me about, you've been in office a year now.

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Obviously, there's a hell of a lot going on. How is that part of your platform and your work, and how are you finding your way into it? Yeah.

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So the very first bill I introduced was a bill to reverse every single one of those horrible gun safety policies you just brought up. You know, this is a fire I've carried with me since twenty-sixteen.

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That's how I got my political start was in the governor's office after my freshman year of college, and this Missouri Senate overruled his veto. It was a blast. Democratic governor of Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon.

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The Missouri Senate, then run by Republicans, overruled his veto.Senate Bill 656, it allowed the state of Missouri to have all those terrible laws.

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So I've carried this fire, this fight with me for a long time because I walk into that building with a perspective that almost no one else in that building has. You know, I'm a member of the school shooter generation.

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You know, I had to learn active shooter drills before I even learned how to read. It's just perspective that no one else in that building has, and I've carried that fight throughout my first year in the Capitol.

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No surprise, the Speaker and members on the other side of the aisle do everything they can to not hear that conversation and to shut us down if we ever wanna talk about gun safety.

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But it's an important conversation to keep pushing, and

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I am fully committed to making sure that folks who look like me and folks who don't look like me throughout the state of Missouri are no longer subjected to gun violence every single day throughout our state.

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That's why I always wear, you know, our Moms Demand Action bands and gun safety is brat every single day. I love it, man. Moms Demand does great work. You introduced this bill trying to wipe all this stuff up.

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You know it's a uphill climb, to say the least. Did you have any allies up front or anyone you could rely on, those type advocacy groups and/or other folks in the House to even try to get it rolling?

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You know, and this is kind of where it comes in, you know, there are cowards on the other side of the aisle 'cause privately they'll tell you, "I think that as long as you're not taking my gun away, we can definitely do more around safety and guns."

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So I'm like, "Okay, so you'll cosponsor my bill or you'll speak on the House floor?"

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And they say, "No, I can't do that because then the gun crazies will come after me in my own party, and then I'll lose my job, and then you'll get someone crazier in office." Mm-hmm.

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So it's just frustrating because then it's like stand for what you believe in.

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If you believe that kids shouldn't be shot in schools, if you believe that guns shouldn't be firing off at all times of the night and in the inner cities, then do something.

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But unfortunately, it's just me and my Democratic colleagues who stand for gun safety in that building, and it's a real shame. That's why we need more people to run for office. That's right.

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If they're not gonna vote for it, kick them out. Let's put more people in who will.

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What, if any, were sort of the more positive outcomes, even if it's lesson learned from trying to introduce that bill and from talking to those folks and finding out who's a coward and who is not, even if that is pretty lopsided?

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Like, how does that affect your ability to legislate going forward with either this bill or versions of it or broken up or anything else?

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It gives me something tangible to bring back to the people because we have so many amazing advocates and lobbyists and young people who just come to the Capitol every session who lobby for safer gun regulations.

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And getting caught trying is something Democrats haven't always done. Mm-hmm.

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But it's the getting caught trying, trying to push policies that make a real difference in people's lives, that we can go back to our voters and say, "Look, we are the party that stands for gun safety or reproductive freedom or any other topic that actually helps people on the ground."

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And that's what's made the biggest difference is showing that we are doing something and then turning that energy into support for Democrats in the next election. Right.

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I mean, you can at least get people to go on the record. If you get them to go on the record and say, "Yeah, I'm gonna vote against this," it's something, right? It might not flip the whole House, but it is something.

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And every time, again, a classroom gets shot up or anywhere, you know, that's another stain on that record. Again, the states adjacent to Missouri sort of surrounding it philosophically and geographically are similar.

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So I'm curious if you look at other states that are trying to do similar things to at least start to chip away at, if not permitless carry, then safe storage, if not red flag, then ammo, right?

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Where are you able to find real measurable inspiration or blueprints from some of these other places that maybe could apply in Missouri in, in round two?

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The state of Illinois, our neighbors to the east of us here in Missouri, have done just amazing work in their legislature. A friend of mine, Rep.

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Nabila Syed, also a Run for Something alum, who's a fierce advocate for gun control.

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And when we see, of course, you're never gonna solve the entire issue with just one bill, but if you can take the number of gun-related deaths from, say, five thousand down to four thousand, that's a thousand families throughout our communities who don't have to suffer the burden that comes with losing a loved one to gun violence.

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We can make real meaningful changes in our communities one step at a time, but only if we have leaders with the courage and backbone to fight for these issues. I appreciate that.

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It-- You know, we often tell folks where we can learn from the past whether obstacles we never got past or got over or successes, however incremental they might have been, throwing sort of the kitchen sink variety pack at these huge issues that are very complicated is often how we make a lot of progress.

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And we always come back to, and you're probably too young for this, I'm a thousand, but, you know, all of the crazy efforts around smoking. Yeah.

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It's like, you know, what we had to do on the legal and marketing and social fronts and packaging and all this in the court cases to make any progress. Yeah. Yeah. It's like even something as simple as seatbelt laws.

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Mm-hmm. You know, when my mom was my age, you know, there were really bad auto fatality rates.

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But what the government did was take a look at the issue and treat it like a public health issue, and they implemented seatbelt laws, um, regulation on how cars and safety standards were met, which changed the way that we designed roads so cars were less likely to bank.

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When you treat something like the public health issue it is, you can drastically lower the number of deaths caused by that issue. Yeah. And we need to do the same thing related to guns. Yeah.

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Everyone's gonna be affected by it at some point, directly or semi-directly. I mean, we're all obviously affected by it in so many different ways at this point.

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Looking at some of those other states, and I'm not sure if, you know, a year in if you-- Obviously, you've been organizing for a while, but if you've got similarAllies, friends, acquaintances in some of these other places, again, looking at Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma having gone through the fire once on this now and rebuilding, what would you say to them as folks like yourself in those houses are trying to make similar efforts?

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Community is everything.

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And after Donald Trump won, I didn't have marching orders for people, but I did tell them, you know, "Find your community and build your community," 'cause that's-- community is gonna be what gets us through this awful administration.

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[chuckles] Yeah. I would just tell them, you know, "Find your community, find like-minded people who agree with you on these issues, and then organize.

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Grab some friends, grab some clipboards, knock on doors, and talk to your neighbors about these issues, especially gun control." For sure.

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Who are your allies, again, either just spiritually or, or really helping with on the ground and organizing stuff? Moms Demand, who else are you actually interacting with and you feel like you can rely on?

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There are really great groups here in the St. Louis region, like Moms Demand Action, the St. Louis Arc, who helps with our disability issues and safety around that.

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You have Missouri Hospital Association, who's been all in on, on safety standards throughout our communities, and groups like NEA.

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You know, teachers who don't wanna have to deal with kids who are going through ang- You know, I had one teacher tell me about this young girl who told her she was afraid to go to the bathroom because she just thought someone might shoot her.

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You know, this is something that's seeping through our community, and we have to address it. It makes me so angry. I've got ten, 11, and 12-year-olds, and, uh, they're privileged. They're fine.

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They're doing the same drills from Virginia. Who knows? It's so easy for folks to say, my parents, for instance, were, I mean, ridiculous, hiding under their desks because of Cold War, you know, potential nuke stuff.

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But first of all, desk's not gonna do a lot for you in that situation. But I get you gotta do something. Nothing. But those kids weren't watching nukes happen every week. They weren't connected to it.

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They didn't see live streams. They didn't see videos and texts that kids were making from other classrooms, even just for drills. And it's a whole different ballgame. I mean, the level of day-to-day trauma

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when you haven't even been exposed to it yourself, you haven't even had a shooter in your building, is, you know, nothing else that such a broad populace has even faced.

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Obviously, in this country, we do cruelty very well. Black people, immigrants, you name it. That is what our history is.

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But again, the way in every single state cowards have shown up for work to not protect children is a choice, and kids are more aware of that choice than ever before, to the point where, like you said,

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you got some young girl who doesn't wanna go to the bathroom, and why should she? Yeah. That's exactly right. And the time for us to do something has long passed.

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Like I said, even if we can lower the number by a thousand, we are saving a thousand families from heartache, and that'll be worth it. Yeah. All right.

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I'm not gonna let you go without talking about, you were in the news a little bit the past couple weeks here. You were part of a sit-in protest. You didn't leave the floor of the Missouri House for 80 hours.

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Is that right? I would imagine- A hundred and twenty-three. Oh, 123.

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Because of basically everybody is attempting to gerrymander this week, essentially redrawing districts, which if, like, you had told AP Government me, like, this is how it was gonna go down tw-twenty-five years ago, it's crazy to watch this happen live.

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Talk to me about how you got to that point and what the latest is there 'cause obviously this is pretty fucking important. Yeah.

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No, this is why it's so important the work that Run for Something's doing 'cause they recruit young progressive candidates who aren't afraid to stand up to the status quo.

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You know, it's no coincidence that two of the three members, myself, Representative Jared Dean, we are the two youngest Democrats in the House chamber, both Gen Z.

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And we just kinda looked around and saw that there needed to be a fight. [chuckles] So why not us?

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You know, we were here for a moment like this where, inspired by the sit-in of the 1960s in diners during the Civil Rights Movement, we decided to sit in, knowing the fight ahead of us was monumental, but we could bring attention to what was going on right here in Missouri.

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And I gotta give some thanks to a lot of friends in Democratic Party who really wrapped their arms around us. Amanda Lemons one of them.

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Vice President Kamala Harris, Kenmore Congresswoman Cori Bush, DNC Chairman Ken Martin, former DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison, all were helping us throughout that entire five-day span to help us get the message out of what was going on right here in Missouri.

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But yeah, we just looked around a-and decided, "Let's bring attention to this."

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And this is why younger people in office is so important because we used new ways people are consuming media to get that message out on the House floor.

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We were doing TikTok Lives and Instagram Lives from the House floor, just breaking through to people's feeds to let them know what was going on, and we brought a lot of awareness.

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The day after the sit-in, we held what I think is the largest demonstration in the Missouri Capitol's history, flooded the Capitol with tons of people from around our state to, you know, energize the crowd, and then we turned that energy into mobilization.

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And now in Missouri, we have something called a citizen referendum where if we collect 108,000 signatures across the entire state, we can put that map on the 2026 ballot, and that's exactly what we're doing right now, is that we're mobilizing folks to be involved in our civic process, that you were inspired by what we've done on the House floor.

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It's now your turn to take up the baton and do your part as a citizen to help collect signatures, organize signature sign events, just putting your name on a signature, and then voting for this referendum in 2026.

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I love that, man. I love when you were describing that moment where you guys kinda looked around and said, "I think there's gotta be a fight, and I think it's us."

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Again, our job is re-really we try to help people answer this question, right?

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As, like, rigorously as we can with these really researched-Whether it's policy at whatever level, or charitable, or candidates, or you name it. Anywhere in the world.

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And I have these interesting conversations sometimes with wealthier folks offline usually, where they reply to things, and they go, "Great. I'm keeping up with it, and I really wanna do this.

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Is this gonna move the needle? And I can only do this much," or whatever. And one of my, I find, more effective questions back to people who go, "What can I do?"

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And then kinda go, "I don't know if I'm comfortable doing this or this." And I-- You know, it's kinda like door-knocking.

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As I'm sure you're aware, 'cause you got elected, the best version of door-knocking is not knocking on the door and telling people all about your campaign.

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It's asking them what they give a shit about and finding a connection point. Boy, did that make door-knocking so much easier when I started- Yes. -to figure out how to do that.

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But I like to go back to these people and go w- like, "Why did you write back to me?" Like, "Why did you call me? What is the thing that you really-- Why are you here?

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What did you give a shit about that you felt the need to subscribe, or listen, or donate, whatever it is?" And I'll let them tell the story again, and I try to just say, 'cause look where we are, man. You know?

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I just say, "Okay, what are you gonna do about it? What is your time here for? What is your wealth for, or your position in whatever company, or as a freshman member of the Missouri-- You know, what was the point?

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What was the point? What are we doing here?" And if they're still wavering, I'm like, "I don't have time. I got other folks I can help." But I love that you guys were like, "I guess it's us."

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'Cause what the fuck else are we doing? What are we here for? What is the point, right? If you can bring- Right, right. -five thousand lives down to four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine lives, like, that's a kid.

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That's one kid. That's absolutely right. And you know, for a long time, folks are... Folks look at the Democratic Party and said, you know, "They always tuck their tails and run."

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And it's refreshing to see that there are young Democrats who are now picking up that baton and showing some fight. And again, everyone in our party has a role to play.

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Definitely admire and have deep respect for the generations that came before us. But I think it was a little signal that, "Hey, we are ready to continue and carry forward the good fight that you guys started."

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So we are so grateful to be in this fight, and we're not going away anytime soon. Fuck yeah, man. What is next on your docket? Again, obviously, you know, the redistricting is a huge thing. Anything else specific?

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I have a crazy calendar of when every state house meets. It's the most insane thing you've ever seen. But I don't have it in front of me. Yeah. So what's... What is pressing for you right now?

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I have to talk about my baby legislation, House Bill eight eleven last year. It'll be reintroduced again next year. Let me backtrack. Right after I was elected, my lovely wife, Natalia, showed me your Instagram.

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And again, just new ways people are consuming news and media. She showed me the story of this girl named Alondra who lives thirty minutes away from my district, but did everything you expect a young person to do.

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She came here as a child. She has DACA status. But she worked her way through school, helps her family, helps them pay the bills.

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After nursing school, when it came time for her to get her nursing license, the state of Missouri said, "You are paying your taxes, you're a stand-up citizen, that's all great.

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But because you're a DACA recipient, we are not gonna license you to be a nurse," while we have a nursing shortage in the state of Missouri. Everywhere. So when she-- [chuckles] Right.

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So when Natalia showed me the story, I said, "You know, this is why I ran for office. I see a problem. Let me do something about it."

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So my bill, which would just change a few lines in our state statutes, would allow DACA recipients not just to be nurses, but contractors, teachers, any professional licensed job in our state.

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And the most shameful part of this last session is that we have a speaker of the house who is the first person of color to be the speaker of the house in the state of Missouri, the only person of color on their side of the aisle, and he is a doctor.

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He is a doctor. And he stopped this bill in its tracks, did not even send it to a committee, wouldn't even let us have a hearing on the bill until the very last day of session.

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He sent it to a committee because the Constitution requires our speaker to send every bill to committee. So he ran the clock out.

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And you better believe the bill will be back next year, and we will have a lot more advocates in the building advocating for them, too.

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You say you wanna address immigration, here's an opportunity for the state level to do it. Again, like, I spend so much of my day just, like, fucking furious. That's... has so many layers. Incredible.

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I love that you were like, "We're gonna fix that." 'Cause you're right, it's crazy. What are you doing keeping more nurses out? This is completely nuts.

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Whether you're in a hospital, in a doctor's office, childcare, NICU, elderly care, it doesn't matter. We're short, like, fifty thousand nur- Like, it's crazy. It's crazy. That's exact- that's exactly right.

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'Cause when you go to a hospital, you don't see the doctor. No. It's the nurses that you see the entire time. And let me be clear. To the south of us is the state of Arkansas.

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Ruby red Republican Arkansas passed this bill in twenty twenty-one.

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So here we are in twenty twenty-five, and Missouri Republicans are so obsessed with who can be more MAGA and who can be more awful to immigrants, they won't even have a conversation about this bill and will sit you down on the House floor if you dare to talk about it.

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Man, I'm so fired up for this. Awesome. I'm in. Let's do it. Virginia is working on pieces of that, I know.

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College here, Old Dominion University, ODU, just recently said I guess they're gonna try to graduate two classes a year. It's not a huge nursing school, but they're like, "We have to do something.

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We don't have enough, and they gotta come here." And the demand is, is crazy for it on both sides of the market. But we also have a very shitty governor, but he's got about two weeks left before we kick his ass out, so.

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And so get Abigail's Command Burger in there. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I can't wait. Oh, my God. I'll be there Saturday. I can't wait. Where are you gonna... Wait, where are you gonna be on Saturday?

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Norfolk, Virginia, to do a rally and knock on some doors. That's twenty minutes away. Oh, wait. You're not showing up the big guy, are you? I'll see you guys Saturday. Okay. All right.

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Okay, we're gonna talk about that later. This is fantastic. All right, last two questions. What's a book you'd recommend to folks, like, you got any time at all? A Hundred and Seven Days by Kamala Harris. Okay.

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I have not had a chance to do yet. I'm stoked. I've heard it doesn't pull any punches, which is great. And last one, what's a playlist you can't get enough of right now?I've been listening to a lot of country.

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Jason Aldean. I do like country. Even guys like some old school country like Conway Twitty. Like All right... I've been really getting into some country playlists. Great music.

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Have you messed around with Charlie Crockett at all? Mm-mm. Oh, this guy's incredible. Check him out. He is so old school. He was just at a concert up here in Richmond a few weeks ago at this new amphitheater.

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Guy's amazing. Yeah, that's great, man. Yeah, the old stuff is great. Ray, thank you so much for your time, man. I really appreciate it. But yeah, we'll connect on all these bills and fighting the good fight, man.

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I'm so thankful to have you down there. Keep it up. [upbeat music] My second guest today is Jas Hampton, who's running for the mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jas, tell us about yourself. Why are you running?

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Thanks for having me. And I'm running for...

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What is happening in Minneapolis, it feels like it's happening in a lot of places, which is our city leadership, which is our mayor's office and our s- thirteen member city council, have been at odds for several years now, arguing back and forth, and the irony is all of them are Democrats.

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But the gridlock has prevented us from making any progress [laughs] that we should have made around public safety, especially after the tragedy of George Floyd, which happened here five years ago.

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Around economic development within the city, it feels like everyone's downtown was a little dormant after COVID. Sure. But ours also had the compounding effect of George Floyd happening here and so many more things.

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When it comes to our school system, we're really far behind. Forty-five percent of the students that live in the city do not go to our public schools.

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And if you're a Black student, you only have a sixty percent chance of graduating high school in four years. Ugh.

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And then we win all of the superlatives, like the, the best parks and all of these things, but so many folks are left behind in the conversation.

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And so really I'm running to break the gridlock and to move our city forward on a lot of these really important topics. I really appreciate that and appreciate your candor about it and pointing out,

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again, we're in, like, the Gilded Age here, which, you know, I don't say in a celebratory way. You've got... You know, Mayo Clinic is relatively- Yeah... down the block.

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And like you said, you know, but if you're a Black kid, the odds are you're probably not gonna graduate, which is just not ideal.

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We have a lot of work to do, but thankfully, you know, we have a lot of people that want to help. It's just we have to figure out how to do it and...

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Well, listen, I understand the city council, mayor fighting with each other. I was in Los Angeles for 15 years. I mean, it's... Guys, what... Jesus. Yeah. Anyways, talk to me, Jas, for a moment.

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How'd you get hooked up with our good friends at Run for Something? You know, I've actually been a fan of the organization for quite some time and watching all of th- the success that has been bore out of it.

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And I think, y- you know, it, it isn't just happenstance or timing. It... I think it was meant to be that the type of campaign we're running is directly in line with what they're doing as well.

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Listen, I don't think, you know, early 30s feels young anymore, but in this political space it is.

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And the fact that we can have folks to step into the space and say, "Hey, the old guard that has been here, and they've been here for a long time, and they've been doing really important work, we're ready for y'all to pass the baton on to the next group that can carry, you know, this work forward," I deeply believe in it.

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And it's funny. Locally, we have a retired mayor. He's the only mayor to have had, ever had three terms in the city of Minneapolis. And he's kind of like our local Barack Obama. Everyone still loves him. Mm-hmm.

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His name's RT. And I did a interview with him recently, and one of the things he said was when he was the young or young-ish mayor, everyone was like, the old guard struggled to let go.

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And he's like, "When I got to that place, I didn't wanna be that person."

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And so having that conversation with him is even aligned with Run for Something and with this campaign where it is, you know, it's time for some fresh leadership and to turn a new chapter, and that's what we're gonna do here in Minneapolis.

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I love that. Thank you a- again for your candor about it. It's easy for places... I mean, Jas, I live in colonial Williamsburg. Like, we're holding onto a lot of shit here.

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And, you know, we've got a weird city council, mayor thing in the way everything works, but I get both sides of it, right? I don't know what your relationship with your parents are, if they're still around.

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But it's really- Yeah...

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interesting growing up and becoming a human, you're in your early 30s, but especially this phase and later when you realize, one, they're people, and two, I have the opportunity to either parent like them or not at all like them or mix and match where it's appropriate.

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And the whole time you're just like, "Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this." And it's really hard- Yeah... not to do that. But that's applicable, too, in, in politics, right?

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'Cause as everybody always says, and Lord knows Barack Obama learned this, like, it is much more fun to campaign than it is to govern. Oh my goodness.

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And you get in and you realize why some of the things are the way they are. Not to say we can't improve on them at every level, but- I-... easier said than done. I couldn't agree with you more.

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And my parents are still around, and my mom and dad live not too far away from me here in, in our house, and they've been very supportive during this race. But you're exactly right.

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And now, you know, I'm also a father of three children. My wife and I have three kids. So we have a eight-year-old, a five-year-old, a four-year-old.

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And so this applies to parenting and to governing from my viewpoint, where it's just like you see what worked really well and you see what didn't, and you try to augment and base it off of that.

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Here's another really important one that we don't talk about enough. You try not to over-correct. My dad was a military guy, and he was a strict dad. And I appreciate it. It made me who I am today.

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But I didn't wanna over-correct and be, like, the ultra-lenient parent as well. I'm trying to find that middle ground, and that's what we're trying to do in this political space as well.

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And here's the other thing that people sometimes miss. It's not... In politics, it's not just policy. It's also leadership style.

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Something I've been saying a lot in this campaign is, listen, if two different politicians had the same playbook, it doesn't mean you're gonna execute it the same way. Mm-hmm.

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It doesn't mean how you implement the plays and the people you assign into specific positions on the field are gonna be in the right places. There's also a big part of leadership that is a part of this conversation, too.

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It is, because you can have the greatest playbook and, you know, sheets and sheets of policy and pay-fors and you name it, but if you don't have the basics of interest in public speaking or small talk or one-on-one and all of these things, then it doesn't matter, right?

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Yeah. It doesn't matter. Yeah. But you gotta be willing to do that. So you decided you're willing to do that. When did you decide you were gonna run, and why?And then how did you explain that to your wife?

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[upbeat music] Hey, I have three kids. They eat so much. We try to eat real food. We try to cook when we can.

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We try not to waste too much 'cause it drives me nuts, and it's expensive, and also for obvious climate reasons, which is why the Mill Food Recycler changed our lives a couple years ago.

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Here's a question people ask. How often do you empty it? Good question. It's every three weeks. I don't know, maybe, and there's a bunch of us.

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[upbeat music] I'm sitting at the place where I finally asked her with all the courage in my heart, but it's a little bit of a longer story. But, you know, my background is I was a corporate lawyer.

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I started as a public defender while in law school, and then I was a corporate lawyer for five years.

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And then after the tragedy of George Floyd, the precursor to this conversation, I had a difficult conversation where I said, "Courtney," my wife, "Courtney, I think I'm gonna quit my corporate law job the year before I make partner to start a company to address these interactions like George Floyd's and to deescalate them and make them safer.

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And I'm gonna start that business with two buddies from college." And she was like, "You're on my insurance anyways. Go ahead." And so she encouraged me to do it.

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I've been running that business now for the last five years. It's called Turn Signal. It connects drivers to an attorney on a video call instantly when they've been pulled over within fifteen seconds. That's incredible.

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We serve over two hundred thousand people across the country. It's an employee benefit at Fortune five companies all the way down to startups, into hospital systems, and that was building a solution when I saw a need.

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I've successfully represented individuals that were wrongfully incarcerated for nineteen years through the Great North Innocence Project as a pro bono attorney.

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Whenever I see an issue and I think that I can address it, I try to step up and to do that. And I, that's what I've seen in the city of Minneapolis, this gridlock.

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It feels like we just needed someone to step up and say, "Listen, I can be the adult in the room."

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And yeah, we have a portion of our city council that's more Democratic, moderate, I'm using their words, and another portion that is DSA endorsed and more progressive. And here's the thing.

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We have thirteen wards in our city. You're supposed to have different types of leaderships across those wards- Yeah...

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because one of our wards is over ninety percent immigrants or folks from another country, and another one is extremely affluent, and the vast majority of the residents there are white, and they have different needs, and they ask for different things.

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You should have different leadership. That's the point of democracy. Mm-hmm.

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And it's the mayor's job in this moment to distill all of that down into policy that can move our city forward, and that's what I believe I could bring into that.

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And so when I asked my wife, I said, "Hey, remember the last conversation we had where I wanted to quit my job? I have an- another one." And my wife is incredible. I can hear her in there on a Zoom call right now.

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She works incredibly hard in her career. And she said, "I have a stable career that can keep us afloat.

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You can take this risk and do it because you're, you know, what we need you to do for people is bigger than working at US Bank or Target. So, so go do that." And so she was incredibly supportive. Now, don't get me wrong.

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I've come home a few late nights on this campaign trail where she was like, "What did I do?" But we're both really excited about the decision. It sounds like we're married to the same person, and it's the

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never been more grateful for anything in my entire life. It's ridiculous. Don't deserve it. All the things. Yeah. But that's amazing. Well, first off, thanks to your wife, Courtney. Courtney? Thank you, Courtney.

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Yeah, that's right. That's fucking awesome, man. You got three public school kids. Is that right? That's right. That's what I wanna talk about.

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I will be the first mayor in twenty-five years to have children in the public school system in the city of Minneapolis, so it's important. That, that's a place to start. Okay, great. That's a perfect place to start.

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I imagine your kids do shooter drills like mine do. Yep. Yeah. Have they talked to you about them? Yeah, for sure.

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And then for those that aren't super familiar with the Midwest or with where we live, the Annunciation shooting, the most recent one, was in this city. It was at a school that I was a fifth grade basketball coach for.

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Annunciation is the feeder school to the school that I went to, so it's just, like, really direct and real here. And my kids, I remember... Sorry, I hijacked the question, but my daughter is in, she's in third grade,

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and I remember she came to me and was like, "So what happened? Why were you there? Why were all the ambulances going there?" And it, she's an age where I didn't know.

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It kind of reminds me of Santa Claus in the way of, I want to tell her- Mm-hmm... but I don't want to lie, but I don't want her to go to school and hear from someone else.

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And so navigating that conversation when it was happening here was just very real, for sure. It's a hard one to answer. My kids are all public school kids, ten, 11, 12.

259
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Ridiculous human beings, but, you know, I would do anything for them, and they're veryPrivileged and they're fine, but again, with a lot of privilege, it's easy to say, like, it's a level playing field for school shootings at this point.

260
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Yeah. Everybody's exposed one way or another. And, and, and obviously, again, you guys just had something very heartbreaking.

261
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We're in the NRA's backyard and have our own complexities as far as rules go, but, uh, my kids will come home after a drill, and you can tell it affects them but at the same time, the hard part is they'll tell me about it, and I'll immediately, not tune out, that's not the word I wanna use, but go into, like, my darkest- Mm.

262
00:43:07.702 --> 00:43:14.052
-angriest place while they're telling me- Mm-hmm. -the rest of it, which is, like, that they made up a game while they were hiding in the closet or this or that. Yeah.

263
00:43:14.152 --> 00:43:25.932
And I, I don't know much more to say to them other than, "I'm really sorry you had to do that." I feel the same way, and as I was saying earlier, the reason I'm running is because I want to try to address things.

264
00:43:25.952 --> 00:43:31.152
And it's so funny, we receive questions about this on the city level, and what are you going to do?

265
00:43:31.192 --> 00:43:50.372
And the thing that I always refer to is, listen, if you woulda told me in 2015 or 2012, from a legal perspective, as a lawyer and as a former adjunct professor of law, the things that Donald Trump has done legally or that has gotten approval from the Supreme Court and other courts on down, I would have never believed you.

266
00:43:50.792 --> 00:43:56.872
No. Yeah, I would have bet my mortgage on Roe v. Wade couldn't be overturned by a Supreme Court. Yeah. Right?

267
00:43:56.972 --> 00:44:10.722
And so watching all of those things play out, it's, it-- I had a real change of heart recently, maybe in the last five years, where I very much so was like, we're playing basketball, and they're following us, and we look to the ref and like, "What are you doing?"

268
00:44:10.812 --> 00:44:19.752
Like, "You gotta call that." And the ref's like, "Nope, that wasn't a foul." And we are playing the exact same basketball that we've always played when really we should be operating under different rules now

269
00:44:20.832 --> 00:44:32.552
and playing the same level of intensity that clearly is within the bounds of the rules. And we didn't think it was. And so there's a lot of unique and specific things I think we should do around gun laws.

270
00:44:32.852 --> 00:44:43.872
Specifically, again, not to nerd out on this, but a city cannot change gun laws because in Minnesota you are preempted, you're prevented- Yeah. -from doing that. So let's pause there. We're gonna nerd out.

271
00:44:43.912 --> 00:44:51.972
That's literally the point of this. Let's nerd out on this right now. So tell me, 'cause you got preemption laws in Minnesota like Virginia does, a lot of places. Talk to me about what you can do.

272
00:44:52.332 --> 00:45:00.392
First of all, I got so... Speaking of nerding out about this, my undergrad is also in computer science. Before I went to law school, I made a website, pleasedosomething.org.

273
00:45:00.672 --> 00:45:09.452
And I just made it and put my entire thesis out there, and I sent it to local legislatures to say, "Do something now, and here's what my ideal is."

274
00:45:09.992 --> 00:45:18.992
When we talk about large capacity magazines, when we talk about assault weapons, whoever's in the comments, don't get me started on defining it. We can get into a definition if you really want.

275
00:45:19.032 --> 00:45:29.972
When we talk about those things, we can ban them in the city of Minneapolis. And you're right, there is preemption in Minnesota, just like Roe v. Wade preempted more strict abortion laws, but guess what those states did?

276
00:45:29.982 --> 00:45:32.552
They put trigger laws on the books so as soon as Roe v.

277
00:45:32.632 --> 00:45:41.552
Wade was removed, that it instantly would go into place, and that's the same thing we should be doing around gun laws, high capacity magazines or assault rifles, and safe storage laws.

278
00:45:41.592 --> 00:45:49.432
For goodness sakes, in the city of Minneapolis, the rate of suicide that goes up if there are available and open guns in a home is also unacceptable.

279
00:45:49.472 --> 00:46:01.122
The fact that we can't put laws on the books to say, "Store a weapon safer," is also unfathomable. We should put those trigger laws into place in the city of Minneapolis yesterday. And then guess what?

280
00:46:01.152 --> 00:46:09.292
When you go to the state legislature to fight for preemption to be removed, do you know what they're gonna say? "Oh, well, even if we removed it, your city would argue about it, and you couldn't decide on a law."

281
00:46:09.332 --> 00:46:18.112
And we say, "Nope, it's already on the books. We already agreed. It's already there. You're the only one preempting it." And then their next argument will be, "Oh, well, well, we can't just remove it across the state.

282
00:46:18.292 --> 00:46:25.612
All of these cities will have different laws." Great. Leave preemption and carve the city of Minneapolis out, or any other city that raises their hand and say, "We wanna be carved out as well."

283
00:46:25.872 --> 00:46:36.452
Keep it and say, "All cities are preempted except for Minneapolis. We're ready to do it right now." And then put the pressure on from that way. Listen, I've had a million conversations about this.

284
00:46:37.021 --> 00:46:43.051
We can't do everything in the world, but I'm running for mayor, and that's what I can and should do right now, and that's what we should be doing across the country.

285
00:46:43.452 --> 00:46:49.512
And if 18 cities in the state of Minnesota do that, and they're the right ones, it'll probably cover the vast majority of our population. Mm-hmm.

286
00:46:49.592 --> 00:46:56.552
That's what we can and should be doing right now on the city level, and frankly, waiting any longer, I think, is unacceptable. I love all that.

287
00:46:56.732 --> 00:47:06.572
I also bought a URL at one point, and I haven't used it yet, but it's coming. It's- Yeah. -vaccinateyourfuckingkids.science, so we'll get there. It's- Dot science is great. Yours is a little more...

288
00:47:06.652 --> 00:47:12.661
You could probably put it on a bumper sticker. Mine is question marks. [chuckles] That is what we can do, right? Is go- Yeah.

289
00:47:12.661 --> 00:47:21.572
"Okay, I can't do shit about the actual preemption right now 'cause I'm not running for state congress. I'm not running for governor," and that is not a fix unto itself, right? Yeah.

290
00:47:21.632 --> 00:47:32.432
Because it's-- those things are so complicated. Federalism. But you can look at what you're able to do and then go, "What is the power I need to hold in order to make progress on that?"

291
00:47:32.492 --> 00:47:41.762
Knowing I've got a bunch of nincompoop Democrats who don't agree on stuff, to go, "Should children be able to be shot in schools? No. Should people be able to have full access..." What is it?

292
00:47:42.362 --> 00:47:51.552
It, I, sorry, I've been going deep on this. Is it a misdemeanor for storage? Yeah, especially when the weapon is then used when it's not- Yeah. -being stored properly.

293
00:47:52.092 --> 00:47:59.492
Negligent storage and accessible to a child, gross misdemeanor. What are we doing here? But like you said, you can look at it and go, "I can't do everything about everywhere.

294
00:47:59.512 --> 00:48:07.782
I can run for this city, the biggest city, and I can check off a pretty big box here, and I can save lives." And here's the thing. It's so funny.

295
00:48:08.072 --> 00:48:12.452
It feels like it's not worth playing a game of inches until it's being played against you. Oh, yeah.

296
00:48:12.502 --> 00:48:23.172
And we have been worn away so much in the last six, eight years, and then you feel it, but we aren't willing to do the hard work, the erosive work that sometimes has to be done, and we should.

297
00:48:23.772 --> 00:48:32.012
Well, I love the idea of the reverse trigger laws because I think i-i-- after you shout at people to invest in state and local races for long enough, and then all of a sudden, like you said, Roe v.

298
00:48:32.072 --> 00:48:40.202
Wade and all these laws, some of which were, like, a hundred years old, kick in overnight. Yep. And you say to people, "This is why state races matter." Yep.

299
00:48:40.212 --> 00:48:49.752
Because this has just been a ticking time bomb that most people who live there didn't even know about, and now it's a crime on both sides of an abortion, right? It's a nightmare. So great.

300
00:48:49.812 --> 00:48:56.032
How do we reverse engineer that? How do we take advantage of this stuff? Because if we can't do shit on the federal level-And the state level is what it is.

301
00:48:56.212 --> 00:49:05.092
What can we do to protect these people and say, "We have this in writing," you know? Yeah. And frankly, that's why you run for local office, like you were saying.

302
00:49:05.172 --> 00:49:14.692
This is why we should be doing it and why it's incredibly important. And then also, maybe one day you will be at a bigger stage where you can do- Sure... bigger and better things. But do whatever you can where you can.

303
00:49:15.112 --> 00:49:25.352
So who are your allies on the ground in the city for this particular issue, at least? Advocacy groups, other people on the city council, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah.

304
00:49:25.552 --> 00:49:35.672
Moms Demand Action is doing really great work in the city of Minneapolis to push forward for, you know, some realistic common sense gun law reform on the state level.

305
00:49:36.072 --> 00:49:49.652
I think we have a lot of support within the city council as well that's willing to move things forward, but at the end of the day, all of those seats are up, you know, one week from today, and so we might have a completely different city council and mayor, obviously, I hope, in our city too.

306
00:49:49.712 --> 00:49:59.262
And so I think it's incumbent upon us to come together immediately when we're all sworn in January to start doing this work. And again, this shouldn't be anything that any of us are arguing about.

307
00:49:59.572 --> 00:50:08.962
We're all Democrats within the city, and it's our job to push this law forward. I had a conversation with A-Amanda Litman a couple months ago, it was like her fourth time on the show or something like that. Oh.

308
00:50:08.972 --> 00:50:14.712
And what I love is that she gives zero shits about pulling any punches about anything.

309
00:50:14.772 --> 00:50:27.812
And, you know, one of the things we have to come to terms with is that a lot of the institutions and guardrails, formal and informal, at any level that you and I grew up with, like you said, call it the Overton window, whatever you want- Yeah, yeah...

310
00:50:27.842 --> 00:50:32.132
right? They're gone. Yeah. And you have to say that to yourself and to other people out loud, right?

311
00:50:32.212 --> 00:50:36.562
There's this great scientist, Katharine Hayhoe, says the number one thing you can do about climate change is talk about it. Hmm.

312
00:50:36.622 --> 00:50:48.272
And the number one thing we, we really have to start conversations with is say, "These things are gone now. They're ashes. What are we doing to build something better and new when we get our chance again?"

313
00:50:48.972 --> 00:51:05.032
Which requires a lot of young folks, and I'm calling you a young person here because I'm 1,000, decide to run for office and do get elected to councils and state legislatures and mayors and school boards, whatever it might be, to say, "Well, all we have is an opportunity to do something different because that's it.

314
00:51:05.252 --> 00:51:13.332
We don't have these old things to rely on." Yep. "We don't have, you know, the number of anti-public health laws that are on the books or coming up in the next year. You know, we're starting over."

315
00:51:13.832 --> 00:51:22.652
How do we look at that, say it, come to terms with it, and make an opportunity out of it? And the thing is, we struggle to admit that... I shouldn't say we.

316
00:51:22.712 --> 00:51:30.672
Everyone collectively does not admit that the biggest scandal that we were talking about when Barack was in office was, like, brown suits or reaching over the window at Chipotle.

317
00:51:31.372 --> 00:51:42.792
And now, like, those were the most laughable gaffes or issues that would happen within the White House. And so to even have the starting point of the discussion, I think we always held the moral high ground.

318
00:51:42.912 --> 00:51:55.032
As Democrats, we're always gonna do the right thing, but we have to realize that, like, what is determined to be the right thing or acceptable is wildly different now, and if we don't say that out loud and acknowledge that, I think that we are...

319
00:51:55.152 --> 00:52:06.512
we're only doing ourselves a disservice. There's a lot of stuff, right? Ever since companies are people- Mm-hmm... and any amount of money. I mean, Virginia, we have no campaign finance laws. Like, like zero.

320
00:52:06.592 --> 00:52:13.391
It's a nightmare. But we gotta take back the House in a more real way and elect these amazing people next week to the top three spots.

321
00:52:13.432 --> 00:52:20.132
So we have to play by those rules, and we'll take fucking money from anybody to win because AOC said after the last election, "We cannot just be right.

322
00:52:20.232 --> 00:52:35.372
We have to be effective," and to us, again, like, we call out good guys and bad guys, and to be effective, you have to be in office and you have to be in office for an extended period of time or your policy doesn't mean shit 'cause it's just gonna be reversed in 1,000 different ways.

323
00:52:35.812 --> 00:52:46.032
So we have to play by those rules. But again, we also have to understand, like you said, Democrats from different places and representing these wildly different districts, we're fighting for basics at this point, right?

324
00:52:46.042 --> 00:52:56.092
Yeah. Basic public health stuff, basic education stuff, basic funding. Basic fucking snap in three days. Right. You know, the ability for people to get food from somewhere, right? Yep.

325
00:52:56.272 --> 00:53:01.902
They're looking for, you know, traces of abortion pills in the water, and it's like w-we're fighting for the basics here, so- Yes...

326
00:53:01.952 --> 00:53:10.692
as we like to say, fortunately and unfortunately, there's a lot more people who give a shit than ever before from a lot of different flavors because here we are. Yeah.

327
00:53:10.712 --> 00:53:22.302
So I'm glad that you have these allies and it's, nothing is gonna be easy in this state and complicated and all that, but looking at, you know, what will I have power over when I come to term that I can actually do something about this?

328
00:53:22.332 --> 00:53:37.252
Whether it's immediate or it's now lying in wait for hopefully a better state legislature. That's right. That's right. What does your sort of soonest measurable positive outcome look like to you?

329
00:53:37.432 --> 00:53:47.092
Where do you feel like, "I can make incremental progress on this thing"? Like you said, it is a game of inches to quote Al Pacino. Yeah. I just, I literally watched that speech yesterday. It's amazing. That's so funny.

330
00:53:47.102 --> 00:53:58.092
He's- It's so ridiculous, and it's so amazing. Yeah, like, it's just corny enough to be okay, you know? The number of times- Especially-... I've listened to that before sports things in my life is 1,000. So yeah.

331
00:53:58.172 --> 00:54:08.552
Oh, I've listened to it before- Yeah... going in court before, so- Oh, fuck yeah... to argue. Yeah. Um- Plug it into my veins. So the measurable change I think in our city comes from public safety.

332
00:54:08.572 --> 00:54:14.982
Listen, I sat in the 911 call center in the city of Minneapolis recently. There's one guy that works in there.

333
00:54:15.012 --> 00:54:24.072
He's been there for 11 years, and they have mandatory overtime holds, like you'll be there for eight hours and they say, "We're short-staffed. You need to stay for four more hours."

334
00:54:24.612 --> 00:54:36.292
In the 11 years that he has worked there, he has worked five years of overtime. So he's worked there over 16 years in the 11 years that he's been there, which is wild. Yeah. And that's just the 911 call center.

335
00:54:36.472 --> 00:54:43.712
And you know why I was in there? Because my car was stolen from in front of my house, and when I called 911, it rang for two minutes, and I made a social media post about it.

336
00:54:43.752 --> 00:54:52.872
It was like, "My car was taken, and I was standing here on hold," or not even on hold. It was ringing for two minutes. And then they reached out to me, they're like, "Thanks for, like, bringing this to light.

337
00:54:52.912 --> 00:54:59.404
We're really short-staffed over here."And then I went and sat in there for two hours and watched how short-staffed they were. And then guess what? It didn't stop there.

338
00:54:59.444 --> 00:55:10.403
It also moves to when you call 911 now in the city of Minneapolis, we have a mental health response unit called the BCR. Nice. BCR can go to those calls instead of police officers, and we're short there, too.

339
00:55:10.604 --> 00:55:14.684
And I was like, "Geesh, I have to learn about why we're short over at the BCR," so I did a ride-along with them.

340
00:55:15.274 --> 00:55:33.084
And when I'm ride-along with them and seeing them go to calls that otherwise a officer would, with a gun would go to, when there's a high school student that was contemplating harming herself, and they could call 911, and they would go instead of the police, but they're wildly understaffed as well, and we need more of the BCR team within the city of Minneapolis.

341
00:55:33.164 --> 00:55:42.004
Those are things I wanna step in and bolster immediately when I come into public office because guess what? That also alleviates the things that we're asking officers to do.

342
00:55:42.064 --> 00:55:53.004
We take 50 things that we ask police to do and make it a lot less, and then they can do those m- more effectively and reduce the amount of exposure they have to things that could go wrong that they shouldn't be answering in the first place.

343
00:55:53.044 --> 00:56:03.474
They don't even feel qualified to answer th- some of those calls. So why would we put them in that position? You know, Jas, I, I admire you for a thousand reasons besides terrible taste in movies like me. That's good.

344
00:56:03.544 --> 00:56:19.604
But it's very easy to start pulling the string on the sweater of some of these issues and realize, "Holy shit, this goes so much deeper than this little bill I was trying to get across the line," or, "How do I just hire more mental health professionals for this amazing thing you've got set up that by, by the way, most cities would kill for, which is great."

345
00:56:19.844 --> 00:56:26.484
Yeah. Which is that we had some mental health professionals. We b- have burned most of them out. We don't graduate that many.

346
00:56:26.824 --> 00:56:36.784
Inac- inaccessible, unaffordable, so people both can't access it, can't have the conversations. Men, definitely not. And so where are you gonna hire them from to work for the city?

347
00:56:37.144 --> 00:56:49.824
It's very easy to get scared off by that and go, "I'm gonna get back to my books now." How do you handle that? 'Cause it doesn't stop. Here's the good news or the silver lining from my perspective.

348
00:56:50.364 --> 00:56:56.014
A lot of the solutions to one problem can also come by solving another, right? Mm-hmm.

349
00:56:56.044 --> 00:57:13.624
So if there are high school students that are struggling to graduate, and they're getting into activities ahead that are not helpful to their future careers or lives, showing them from, like, a hi- hierarchy of needs standpoint that if you just look up from the broken glass that's in front of you, although you're walking barefoot, here's the opportunity that we can present to you.

350
00:57:13.684 --> 00:57:28.124
In this situation with those students that are struggling to graduate from high school, if we can say, "Hey, in two and a half or three years, you can be a BCR responder or a public safety officer, and you can do this, and you'll be making $90,000 when you start.

351
00:57:28.164 --> 00:57:36.224
You just have to make it through this program, which we can guide you into straight out of high school. Here's how we can get you there." And then guess what? You're improving the graduation rates.

352
00:57:36.264 --> 00:57:47.164
You're improving the amount of people that not only are from here but also then can be a part of public safety here, and you're improving the amount of people and resources we have responding to these m- mental health calls.

353
00:57:47.344 --> 00:57:55.444
You're addressing multiple things in one. Sometimes even, and this is a hot take, people talk a lot about with the pool of potential officers 'cause we're struggling.

354
00:57:55.584 --> 00:58:06.644
We had 900 officers before 2020, and for most of this year, we've been under 600. So we're struggling to hire officers. Is the pool this big? But we also want the people to be from Minneapolis or live in Minneapolis.

355
00:58:07.104 --> 00:58:12.964
If... Then that will constrict the pool of people because not that many people would live here or are willing to.

356
00:58:13.184 --> 00:58:21.564
But if you say, "Well, we'll give you an extra $6,000 or a housing voucher for the first two years if you do move to the city," now you're expanding the pool- Yeah... of potentials.

357
00:58:21.944 --> 00:58:26.604
You're both getting more officers and getting more that would live in the city. That's the whole point.

358
00:58:27.004 --> 00:58:36.844
We have to work on creative solutions that address more than one things because, listen, i- we can't just have one person out there trying to do it all. We need to pool some of the goals into one solution.

359
00:58:37.204 --> 00:58:46.704
I love it, man. Multi-solving, co-benefits, whatever you wanna call it. They're some of my favorite examples. It's a really great reason to have all these systemic problems is that it turns around- Right...

360
00:58:46.714 --> 00:58:55.033
they're all, like, fully linked together. But by the way, you could have replaced mental health professionals in your comment there with electricians, with plumbers- Yes, yes...

361
00:58:55.064 --> 00:59:12.224
with all these different people, nurses, by God, that we are just unfathomably short on for, again, a thousand different reasons that you can start pulling the string on and go, "Oh, well, most nurses don't wanna teach 'cause they make more in the field than they do in academia," so you need teachers to teach more nurses to be nurse...

362
00:59:12.624 --> 00:59:14.424
It's a whole thing, right? Yeah. We do that all day.

363
00:59:14.724 --> 00:59:27.893
But like you said, you tell some sophomore who's doesn't understandably, like you said, walking on glass, doesn't see a light at the end of the tunnel, any way out of the tunnel, maybe considering they're harming themself because God knows teen mental health is a nightmare, and you say- Mm...

364
00:59:28.224 --> 00:59:40.744
"Buddy, you can own a, an electrician business-" Yes... "work for yourself in four to six years, zero debt, and you're not gonna get replaced by AI, any of this stuff, and we desperately need you.

365
00:59:40.904 --> 00:59:49.344
Your schedule will be booked morning to night, no questions asked." Yep. And then we all benefit from that, obviously, right? 'Cause guess what? We gotta build four million new houses, so congratulations.

366
00:59:49.364 --> 00:59:56.704
I was just gonna say, we have an incredible housing crunch- Yeah... in the city of Minneapolis. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild, man. This is all fantastic. I really appreciate it.

367
00:59:56.784 --> 01:00:04.634
Again, I think you and I could have a much longer conversation, which I would love to do at some point, but- For sure... you got things to do. It's fine. I get it. Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Last two questions. Yeah.

368
01:00:04.644 --> 01:00:16.124
A book you'd recommend. This could be anything. Book you read to your kids or nonfiction or dragons. You tell me. One of the books that I've read recently that I really enjoyed was a book called Die With Nothing.

369
01:00:16.364 --> 01:00:18.404
And- It's a good one... and, and I think it's good.

370
01:00:18.444 --> 01:00:38.844
Like, disclaimer, this is not, like, a book for someone that's still trying to r- pick themselves up by the bootstraps, but the general thesis, it sounds, like, a little crazy, like it's a spendthrift book, but if I had to just summarize a few points, it's like, well, if you're gonna die at 80, and you're waiting to give your kids their inheritance until you die, they're gonna be 60, and that's not when they need it.

371
01:00:39.004 --> 01:00:49.914
And you can't enjoy watching them use their inheritance if you're already gone. So if you have an inheritance at 50, give it to your kids when they're 30, when they really need it right now.

372
01:00:49.964 --> 01:00:58.864
And they can buy a house and start building a foundation. And give it to the nonprofit organizations that you love so you can see the benefit, and the sooner they get the dollars, the sooner they can deliver services.

373
01:00:58.893 --> 01:01:06.528
Yeah. Like, that's the theory, right? If you have the ability to giveDo it now. And also to the other end of it, experiences. You know what?

374
01:01:06.708 --> 01:01:13.638
I was a lot more willing to spend time in a hostel when I was twenty three years old, and I l-was more comfortable taking my shirt off at the beach as well. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

375
01:01:13.908 --> 01:01:22.028
And so stay in the crappy place and do the thing and have the experience because when you're forty, you're not gonna wanna take off your shirt, and you're not gonna wanna stay in the hostel.

376
01:01:22.398 --> 01:01:31.078
So just do it now, you know, and I really appreciated that perspective. I love it. And again, even if you don't read it, you can read into that philosophy a lot of different ways.

377
01:01:31.088 --> 01:01:41.268
But like you said, one of my questions, I just talked about this with the gentleman from Missouri I had on the phone earlier, but you know, when I have these offline conversations or emails or whatever with folks who are maybe a little

378
01:01:42.508 --> 01:01:50.237
wealthier, and they're interested in this idea of what can I do? And my first thing is do not start your own foundation. Please do not do that. Mm. Because there's so many- Yeah...

379
01:01:50.268 --> 01:01:57.828
incredible people on the ground doing the thing. So. But two is go to them and say, "What is it for? What is your time for, and what is this money for?"

380
01:01:57.948 --> 01:02:05.728
'Cause if you're willing to put it out there and to do the math, and there's a thousand calculators you can figure out online or hire somebody who's good. Yep.

381
01:02:05.808 --> 01:02:13.388
Like you said, if you give it to these nonprofits, to these candidates even, guess what? You might not- Yes. You don't get a tax write-off.

382
01:02:13.568 --> 01:02:21.268
Sorry, but your town might not have active shooters much anymore, which is a win. Yep. That's a return on investment. Yep. Tell me. You can watch those happen, and you know what?

383
01:02:21.388 --> 01:02:30.208
If that needs to be like a selfish thing for you, I'm fine with that because just waiting fifty years to dump it all on somebody, first of all, like we need the help now Yes.

384
01:02:30.228 --> 01:02:40.088
And that help compounds just like problems do. So yeah, that is usually how I read it to folks, which is, "Well, what are you doing here?" Yeah. Let's do it. The clock's ticking. Awesome.

385
01:02:40.328 --> 01:02:47.928
What do you need in the last, oh my God, like hours of your campaign here? Seven days left. Donations are, of course, always great.

386
01:02:48.148 --> 01:02:53.948
In Minneapolis, we have a max of one thousand dollars per person, so you can give limitless. That's great for you guys. Yes, it's good for us.

387
01:02:54.348 --> 01:03:03.498
Donations are always great, and then also if you're just willing to volunteer, we do like text banking and phone banking, so you don't have to be here as well. Mm-hmm.

388
01:03:03.508 --> 01:03:15.008
And then, you know, beyond me, just help someone in your local election. If you're helping others doing the work locally, especially folks that are endorsed by Run for Something, I love that. I love it. That's awesome.

389
01:03:15.248 --> 01:03:24.028
Last one, I forgot about this. This is my new question. What's a playlist you can't get enough of right now? Oh, Chance the Rapper's new album. I can't get enough of it. Okay. It's really great.

390
01:03:24.108 --> 01:03:28.608
There's a song called Letters, which I think is great. The intro song, Slide, and Tree is also good.

391
01:03:28.728 --> 01:03:37.208
It's about how marijuana, like the perception has changed so much, but also it hasn't changed that much at the same time. I think- That sums it up. Yeah, yeah. I love that.

392
01:03:37.298 --> 01:03:45.128
That's, that's been the- I similarly had on the Clips album, 'cause Virginia guy, the first track about their parents. I was like, "Well, I'll just sit in my car and cry now." Um, so. Yeah, okay.

393
01:03:45.268 --> 01:03:50.328
Then I guess I'll know what I'm doing for the rest of the day. Yeah. It's amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that. Ez, thank you so much for your time. Good luck.

394
01:03:50.708 --> 01:03:55.908
That's it for this week, and I hope you loved these conversations and people as much as I do.

395
01:03:56.388 --> 01:04:08.588
Huge, huge, huge thanks to our partners at Run for Something for all of their hard work every day, but also to bring these conversations to life. As always, this conversation was produced and edited by Willow Beck.

396
01:04:08.988 --> 01:04:15.948
Reminder, you can find candidates who are endorsed by Run for Something and other awesome organizations we trust at whatcanido.earth.

397
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If you or someone you love is under forty and wants to run for something at the state or local level but doesn't know what's available, head on over to runforwhat.net.

398
01:04:25.508 --> 01:04:37.328
And if you wanna know more about our work, read our newsletters and essays, check out our other podcast, or even get some of our awesome T-shirts, hoodies, stickers, or coffee mugs, head to importantnotimportant.com.

399
01:04:37.708 --> 01:04:39.738
Thanks for listening, and thanks for giving a shit.