transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] MSW Media. Hello, and welcome to The Daily Beans for Thursday, April 23rd, 2026. Today, Republicans decry Virginia's passage of the redistricting referendum, despite being the ones who started it in Texas. Congressional Democrats demand Cosh Patel submit to an alcohol abuse screening test. Trump's Department of Justice has filed an 11-count indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center. A federal appeals court blocks a California law requiring federal agents to wear identification. A federal judge has tossed Cosh Patel's defamation lawsuit against Frank Fuglussi. And the president is said to be in talks to send Afghans who aided US forces to Congo. I'm Allison Gill.

Speaker 2:
[01:01] And I'm Dana Goldberg.

Speaker 1:
[01:05] Hello, my friend. Happy Thursday.

Speaker 2:
[01:07] Thank you very much. We're past the hump, if you will, moving toward the weekend. And yeah, the news just keeps on coming like a firehose. I guess it's job security for us. But man, it's exhausting for everybody else.

Speaker 1:
[01:20] It really is. But hey, how about those Virginians?

Speaker 2:
[01:23] Yes, they showed up. I'm talking Virginias for lovers and voters. That's what they should change it to. So good. So, so good. Wait, is West Virginia for lovers? No. It's Virginia.

Speaker 1:
[01:33] Virginia is for lovers. Yeah, Virginia is for Democrats. It was a squeaker too. I was like, I hope they get 60. No, it was like 5149.

Speaker 2:
[01:41] We'll take it. We'll take it.

Speaker 1:
[01:43] Yeah. A win's a win. However, a judge in Virginia who put a temporary restraining order on this referendum back in February has now post-election, blocked the entire thing and validated everyone's votes from yesterday, said that Virginia, that the Commonwealth cannot draw maps. It can't even certify the election. Yeah. So Jay Jones, the Attorney General there is going to appeal this immediately. It's already before the Virginia Supreme Court, who's been deciding this and actually allowed the referendum to go forward while they decide this on the merits. So I'm not sure why this judge is doing this separately, but they saw it coming. Jay Jones knew that this was going to happen. Although Dana, it's going to be extremely hard or at least harder, I think, to overturn this now that the voters have spoken.

Speaker 2:
[02:33] Absolutely, it should be. And honestly, the voters have spoken in the other two, in California and Virginia. You know where they didn't speak? Texas. And they're allowing them to keep those maps. So it's just wild to me that they would say that it's invalid, you can't do this, and they're not up in arms about Texas just pushing it through.

Speaker 1:
[02:52] Yeah, but they're like, well, Texas's constitution is different. Because you'll remember, we covered this on The Beans. This judge issued that temporary restraining order saying that the governor didn't call the general special session in properly, the wording in the thing was confusing, and the ballot referendum was confusing, that they didn't vote twice in the same period because they called a special session. All sorts of nonsensical, technical things, that I'm pretty sure Virginia, the Commonwealth is smart enough to know that they did this properly. It's going to move pretty quickly and we'll see what happens. But as for right now, everybody in Virginia, the Republicans, the RNC in a lawsuit, they've effectively made your votes invalid.

Speaker 2:
[03:40] Unbelievable, but believable, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[03:42] Right. Also, yeah, but totally believable. Today in our Keep It Blue segment, we're having Oliver Larkin on. He's running in Florida's 23rd district. He's running against Jared Moskowitz. They're the only two in the Democratic primary there. I know some folks were looking for an alternative to Moskowitz. That is why we're having Oliver Larkin on, and that's a closed congressional primary, unlike here in California. So you can vote with your whole chest and still have a Democrat on the ballot in the general election, which is good.

Speaker 2:
[04:12] Thanks so much, Allison. And get this, a federal judge in Texas has tossed a defamation suit brought by FBI Director Kosh Patel against a former FBI Assistant Director turned MSNBC contributor, Frank Figuese. That's a tough one for me, yellow tongue tied. Patel had sued Figuese over comments he made on Morning Joe about the FBI Director's evening activities. And I quote, Yeah, well, reportedly, he's been visible at nightclubs far more than he's been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building. This is Figuese. That's what he said on the show last year. Figuese's lawyers argued that this comment was a sarcastic, hyperbolic remark that receives protection from defamation liability. Good luck against the Atlantic Cache. You're going to need it.

Speaker 1:
[04:58] Yeah, that's a joke, right? Oh, and Laura Loomer's lawsuit got tossed out today against Bill Maher for saying that she had a relationship with Donald Trump.

Speaker 2:
[05:10] Nice.

Speaker 1:
[05:11] And the judge is like, it's clearly a joke. This is sarcasm.

Speaker 2:
[05:14] Yeah, so we still think you guys were fucking at some point.

Speaker 1:
[05:18] Yeah, right. And also, allegedly. Now, it's something that's kind of bugging me before we get to the hotnotes. This morning, Lindsey Graham said on Twitter that he spoke with Trump and Keg Seth on the phone about a way forward in Iran. And, you know, he's a hawk on Iran. He wants to nuke, he wants to bomb him back to the Stone Age. And then, which that already was worrisome, right? That Lindsey Graham's like, I talked to Keg Seth and Trump, we got a plan. Five hours later, the secretary of the Navy, Phelan, was fired and replaced with a MAGA guy named Hung Cow.

Speaker 2:
[05:58] Oh, boy.

Speaker 1:
[05:59] So this is very worrisome to me. I don't know what they're planning. Some sort of offense in the Strait of Hormuz. I don't know, but this altogether seems worrisome to me. So we're going to keep an eye on that as well. All right.

Speaker 2:
[06:12] Sounds good. Thanks, HE.

Speaker 1:
[06:14] All right, everybody. We got news to get to. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right. From The Times, the Justice Department charged the Southern Poverty Law Center, the civil rights group that has long tracked hate groups and extremism, on Tuesday with financial crimes. We talked about how they were under investigation yesterday on The Beans. Now they have an 11 count indictment, and they're being accused of defrauding donors by using their money to secretly pay informants inside extremist organization. At a news conference announcing the charges, Todd Blanch, the acting Attorney General, who has been the lawyer for Boris Epstein, been the lawyer for Donald Trump, been the lawyer for Paul Manafort, been the lawyer for Igor Fruman, Todd Blanch, that Todd Blanch said that from 2014 to 2023, Southern Poverty Law Center made payments totally more than $3 million to people who were affiliated with extremist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Party of America. The law center, he said, was quote, doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing, not dismantling extremism, but funding it. So he's actually saying that... So the Southern Poverty Law Center paid these people to go undercover in these extremist organizations.

Speaker 2:
[07:26] Right, and he's saying they're funding it because of that.

Speaker 1:
[07:28] Funding it, not dismantling it. That's so wrong. The indictment, however, offers little to support the notion that the group's payments to informants are meant to aid the extremist group. Yeah, no. Prosecutors describe how one informant, which the Law Center refers to as a field source, quote, was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the Unite the Right Rally in 2017 in Charlottesville, and attended the event at the direction of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Another informant affiliated with a neo-Nazi group was paid more than a million dollars over a period of about nine years, according to the indictment. And in 2014, that informant actually stole 25 boxes of documents from an unidentified violent extremist group. The Southern Poverty Law Center later used those documents to create a report about the group. The center faces charges of wire fraud, false statements to a bank, conspiracy to commit money laundering. No individuals are charged in the indictment, though Todd Blanch said the investigation is ongoing. He accused the group of manufacturing racism to justify its existence. Wow.

Speaker 2:
[08:31] I know.

Speaker 1:
[08:32] In 2019, SPLC obtained a cache of e-mails revealing how White House Senior Policy Advisor Stephen Miller had promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories, and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof's murderous rampage. That is one of several reasons that the Trump administration is probably going after the Southern Poverty Law Center. And these are pointed out in a piece by Phil Williams on his sub-stack, Hate Comes to Main Street, another reason, the next year after that, SPLC released a new extremist file on Stephen Miller. And that file said that it documents not only the findings in the leaked emails that revealed his alignment with white nationalists and far-right extremism, but also digs further into his background, including Miller's ties to white nationalist Richard Spencer and his work with far-right hate groups while studying at Duke University. Another reason, last year, SPLC reported that the head of Trump's immigration policy, Tom Homan, appears to have met with an associate of the Proud Boys on at least four separate occasions. At least one of those instances was a private meeting held in Chicago after the 2024 election to talk about deportations. In addition, the group has noted that Kash Patel has repeatedly appeared on podcasts at events alongside racists and anti-Semites. They've also filed multiple lawsuits in opposition to the Trump administration, including one accusing it of violating due process rights of immigrant children and their sponsors. And so, Phil Williams put all these reasons together. And he talks about his personal experience with the Southern Poverty Law Center. And that is called Hate Comes to Main Street, is the name of his publication on Substack. So you can check that out.

Speaker 2:
[10:09] That's amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much, Allison. This is from the Associated Press. An appeals court has blocked a California law passed in 2025, requiring federal immigration agents to wear a badge or some form of identification. The Trump administration filed a lawsuit in November challenging the law, arguing that it would threaten the safety of officers who are facing harassment, doxing, and violence and that it violated the Constitution because the state is directly regulating the federal government. A three-judge panel of the Ninth US. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction pending appeal Wednesday. It had already granted a temporary administrative injunction to block the implementation of the law. At a hearing on March 3rd, Justice Department lawyers argued that the California law sought to regulate the federal government, violating the supremacy clause of the Constitution, or as I like to call it now, you know, federal government, the white supremacy clause of the Constitution. The appeals court agreed, saying that the law attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions in an opinion written by Judge Mark Bennett. The initial law also addressed another California measure signed into law last year that would have banned most law enforcement officers from wearing masks, net gaiters and other facial coverings. It was blocked by a federal judge in February. The legislation did not apply to state law enforcement and made exceptions for undercover agents. Protective equipment like N95 respirators or tactical gear and other situations where not wearing a mask would jeopardize the operation. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[11:46] And so there was already a temporary restraining order. This is a more permanent one. There will be an appeal. But this was a long shot, you know, if I'm being honest. A long shot law by California, sure, to try to regulate federal agencies. That's really, you can't really do that. Yeah. The federal government does take white supremacy. I mean, supremacy over state laws. Next up from the Times, in an historic betrayal after halting a US resettlement program for Afghans who helped the American war effort, Trump is in talks to send as many as 1100 of them to the Democratic Republic of Congo. That's according to an aid worker briefed on the plan. The group includes interpreters for the US military, former members of the Afghan Special Operations Forces, and family members of American service members. More than 400 children are among them. The Afghans have been living in limbo and cutter for over a year. They were taken there after being evacuated by the United States for their own safety because they supported American forces during the war against the Taliban that began in 2001. Sean Van Diver, the president of the aid group Afghan EVAC, said he had been briefed on the Congo plan by State Department officials. He said the Afghans would be given a choice between returning to live under the Taliban or being sent to Congo, which is suffering one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. American diplomats have been meeting with Democratic Republic of Congo officials for months. Recently, the Trump administration struck an agreement with the country to accept migrants from other countries to face deportation from the United States. Part of that deal included a $50 million grant to the UN Refugee Agency to provide assistance to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Discussions over the Afghans are separate from the deportation deal, but both are examples of what has become a hallmark of Trump's immigration strategy, moving people to far away places, even when those countries have human rights abuses or authoritarian governments.

Speaker 2:
[13:44] Thank you so much, AG. This next story is from NBC. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are demanding that FBI Director Kash Patel fill out a screening test used to assess, and I quote, harmful patterns of alcohol consumption and routinely used by individuals to help identify hazardous drinking behaviors, following allegations published in an Atlantic article. I mean, also, maybe by a video put out with our men's hockey team at the Olympics. Maybe that can be used as evidence. Oh my God. In a letter to Patel on Tuesday, ranking member Jamie Raskin, whom we love, and more than a dozen other Democrats suggested the alleged behavior could harm US national security. Some of the screening questions attached to the letter ask, how many drinks containing alcohol do you have on a typical day when you're drinking? How often during the last year have you failed to do what was normally expected from you because of drinking? And how often during the last year have you been unable to remember what happened the night before because you had been drinking? The Democrats also asked that Patel fill out a sworn statement that his answers are true under the penalty of perjury. Good for them. Citing the Atlantic report about Patel's alleged excessive drinking and unexplained absences at the agency, Raskin wrote, and I quote, It's no surprise that your purported drinking habits and erratic schedule have had demonstrably disastrous effects on your performance of duties as FBI director. Could also explain why he likes to tweet out about investigations as they're ongoing.

Speaker 1:
[15:18] Did you see it in his lawsuit? He's like, these are lies and I can prove it. And his proof is like, we've arrested 20,000 people, crime rates are down, you know, like, it's like something has nothing to do with his sobriety.

Speaker 2:
[15:31] Yeah, Raskin told Patel that Atlantic report about his drinking created serious concerns. And I quote, Your inability to control your impulses has reportedly undermined high stakes criminal investigations. But Democrats aren't in the majority, as we know, and they lack unilateral subpoena power. It's not likely for Republicans to act if Patel refuses. Patel sued The Atlantic this week over the story, with his attorneys calling it a sweeping, malicious and defamatory hit piece. The FBI director seeking $250 million in the magazine. In a statement on Monday, he said the magazine was, and I quote, given the truth before they published and they chose to print falsehoods anyway. Ben Williamson, spokesman for Patel, called the Democrats probe as baseless and meritless as virtually every other investigation Mr. Raskin has spent his time in Congress pursuing, which pretty much says it is not baseless and it's not meritless because Jamie Raskin doesn't waste his fucking time. An intern who filed Patel's lawsuit did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Raskin's letter. White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, said this week that Patel remained a critical player in the administration. Trump has previously conveyed his displeasure to Patel about his locker room activities. That's, that is fucking fresh, right there. You got a problem with his locker room activities? Okay. As well as his use of government plane to fly to Milan Cortina Winter Olympics after videos of the FBI director chugging beer, circled on social media. By the way, that's from NBC News. That's what they reported in February. During Trump's transition to the White House, Patel disclosed a decades old arrest during a college basketball game. What was he arrested for in 2001? Charges of misdemeanor public intoxication by police in Richmond, Virginia, where he was attending college. That's according to public records. Three days later, the records show he was found guilty of the misdemeanor offense. A Trump transition spokesman at the time that the case was dug up by the media as an effort to smear Patel. On Wednesday, a Patel spokesperson said, That is not new. It's a 25 year old college incident that was disclosed to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation process. Frankly, it's embarrassing that NBC is spending time on it. Last week, The Atlantic reported that Patel frantically called aides and allies on April 10th after he was unable to log in to an internal computer system and believed he had been fired. Maybe he was drunk and forgot the passcode. The Atlantic story cited nine people familiar with Patel's outreach. NBC News and other news outlets had asked administration officials that day about rumors of Patel's firing, but officials had swiftly said that they weren't true. While Patel's lawsuit says he, and I quote, had a routine technical problem logging into a government system, which was quickly fixed on April 10th. The suit says it was false that Patel engaged in a freakout or was deeply concerned that his job was in jeopardy after the tech issue. When NBC News asked Patel to explain the login issue during a press conference on Tuesday, he said, and I quote, he was never locked out of the systems, and that anyone that says the opposite is lying.

Speaker 1:
[18:44] Oh my God. So did he read his own lawsuit?

Speaker 2:
[18:47] I guess not. He broadly accused the press of reporting false lies. Okay, that's repetitive, and raising baseless questions, and said he would serve in his position as long as Trump and acting Attorney General Todd Blanch wanted him to do so. Yeah, no shit dude, because they're the people who are going to fire you.

Speaker 1:
[19:06] I feel like false lies are truths.

Speaker 2:
[19:08] Yeah, I think a double negative on that one. False lies are definitely truths.

Speaker 1:
[19:14] So this, the fact that his lawsuit against Fuglussi was tossed out as rhetorical nonsense, I don't think this lawsuit is going anywhere. So we'll keep an eye on it for you. All right, thanks for that. As I said, as I promised, next up, we're going to talk with a candidate for Florida's 23rd District. Folks were looking for an alternative to Moskowitz. A lot of people were upset that Moskowitz voted for the Lake and Riley Act, for example, and has done some stock trading on some certain things. So people were asking for an alternative, and that's going to be Oliver Larkin. So we're going to speak to him after this break. Stick around, we'll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back. It's time to Keep It Blue. And today we're focusing on Florida's 23rd Congressional District. This is a seat currently held by Jared Moskowitz. He is running in the primary against a competitor, an activist, union organizer, proud democratic socialist, to deliver for South Florida. Please welcome Oliver Larkin. Hi, Oliver, how are you?

Speaker 3:
[20:20] Well, thanks, Allison. How are you doing?

Speaker 1:
[20:22] I'm good. It's good to see you. It's good to speak with you. Happy to give you this platform so that people know that you're running against Moskowitz, who currently holds the seat. Talk a little bit about the constituency in the 23rd and why you've decided to throw your hat in the ring to unseat Moskowitz.

Speaker 3:
[20:40] Yeah. So Florida's 23rd district in Broward and Palm Beach County, it's a wonderfully diverse community. We've got the beach as well as going right up to the Everglades. We've got southern Palm Beach County in Boca Raton all the way down to the city of Fort Lauderdale. Our community is highly diverse. As I mentioned, we've got about 30 percent of people born outside the United States, Spanish speakers, Creole speakers, Portuguese speakers from Brazil, a lot of immigrants from Central, South America, the Caribbean, and really all over the world. We also have one of the highest representations of LGBTQ Americans in the entire country. We've got the city of Wilton Manors, which is one of the highest proportions of LGBTQ households in the entire country as well as the city of Fort Lauderdale. And this is a traditionally democratic district in Broward County, the highest democratic voter registration county in the state of Florida. So this is where we've delivered those big democratic wins over the years for Barack Obama and for really where we're trying to get back to it. It really starts in Broward and Palm Beach. And that's really what we're running on to really activate the democratic base of our community and turn them out in November, to keep the seat blue and hopefully take a lot more from the Republicans.

Speaker 1:
[21:55] Yeah, and it seems that because of the political environment we're in right now, multiple different factors weighing in on what I'm about to say, that progressive candidates seem to be doing far better than they have in the past. And you're coming from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, our big tent here. Can you talk a little bit about why you think it's better that we, especially right now, do everything we can to not only either elect progressive candidates, but also to push more centrist candidates to the left by making sure that we have progressive candidates running in these districts. And then talk a little bit about why you feel that Moskowitz is not serving the constituents to your satisfaction or to theirs.

Speaker 3:
[22:38] Yeah, absolutely. I think really with Congressman Moskowitz's representation in our district, he was elected in 2022. I was proud to vote for him to keep the seat blue after Ted Deutch retired. But we really haven't met the expectations that we had when we elected him. Congressman Moskowitz has not held any public town halls since he was elected, as he's generated headlines for joining the Doge caucus as the very first Democrat in all of Congress. His congressional stock trading, this was on Trump's Liberation Day, buying the dip on the trade war with Marjorie Taylor Greene last year. But also selling his shares in Seacoast Bank the day before Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, and Seacoast Bank had its share collapse by about 30 percent in value. So we see a level of accepting the corporate PAC money. The FEC reports just came out. He's got a lot of APAC-bundled donations as really in this context, Democrats had 81 million voters turn out for Joe Biden in 2020. We only had 74 million turn out for Kamala Harris in 2024. That change really comes down to, I think, a lot of the broken promises that were not entirely the fault of the Biden administration to be clear. I think we had senators like Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, who got in the way of a $15 minimum wage, who got in the way of build back better, of closing the carried interest tax loophole so that we can invest in things like universal childcare and canceling student loan debt. So there's a degree of opposition from within the Democratic Party, and I find that same level of opposition too often with Congressman Moskowitz, when it came to voting to cut IRS funding to send more military aid to Israel. Congressman Moskowitz was one of 12 Democrats who voted with Republicans to slash about $14 billion from IRS tax enforcement to go after corporations and billionaire tax cheats to send more money to support what the entire world has assessed as a genocide in Gaza. So when it comes to centering Al Green, centering Rashida Tlaib, being the only Florida Democrat to vote for the Lake and Riley Act, this pro-ice immigration law that, as I mentioned, with our district where nearly one out of three people are born outside of the United States, people are speaking Spanish or Portuguese or Creole at the grocery store. And we've got the headquarters of the Geo Group, the private prison corporation headquartered right here in the 23rd district in the city of Boca Raton. We have a Geo Group operated ICE facility, the Broward Transitional Center. And Congressman Moskowitz, he's not only voted for the Lake and Riley Act, he actually wrote the personal letter of recommendation for a Geo Group private prison executive, Adam Hasner, former House Republican majority leader in Tallahassee to become president of Florida Atlantic University, which on its board of trustees has Geo Group executives as well. So there are a number of areas on immigration, on Doge with the attacks on the federal workforce and voiding collective bargaining agreements and laying off entire agencies like the Department of Education, where Congressman Moskowitz has been too reluctant to stand with the Democratic base of the party and too eager to give this bipartisan consent to the Trump Project 2025 agenda. And so I think we need something different.

Speaker 1:
[25:55] Yeah. And talk a little bit about some of the recent elections that have kind of boosted not just morale, but chances for a race like this, for example.

Speaker 3:
[26:05] Yeah, this is really exciting. And I think this challenges the narrative that has existed about Florida, really post-COVID, with Ron DeSantis and the Republican Party having so much electoral success. We're seeing that start to change. I was very proud to be knocking on doors in Miami, in neighborhoods like Little Havana for Eileen Higgins, the first Democrat elected mayor of the city of Miami in a quarter century, the first woman elected mayor in the city's history. We've seen Eileen Higgins get elected in our district. Andy Thompson, the newly elected Democratic mayor of the city of Boca Raton, he won by a five vote margin and is the first Democratic mayor to take City Hall in Boca in three decades. Just north of us, further north in Palm Beach County, Emily Gregory just won a special election to flip the state house district that includes Mar-a-Lago. This was a double digit Trump margin of victory in 2024. Now we're seeing these really strong results for Democrats. It's not just here in South Florida. The same evening that Emily Gregory was elected in that special election, the vacancy created by Ron DeSantis appointed Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins leaving the state Senate. Democrats flipped that open state Senate seat over in Tampa Hillsborough County. We saw last year around the same time, Josh Wheal and Gaye Valamont, two Democrats running in special elections to fill the vacancies of Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz resigning from Congress. We saw double-digit overperformance there in those races and very, very deep red districts that, for instance, Gaye Valamont flipped Escambia County, which includes Pensacola, for the first time in about 30 years. So all across the board, and this is true not only in Florida, but in other parts of the country, we just saw Sean Harris, the Democratic nominee in Northwest Georgia, in the race to fill Marjorie Taylor Greene's seat, overperformed by about 25 percentage points. And we even saw leader Hakeem Jeffries saying that if Republicans decide to redistrict in Florida, it's going to put a lot of Republicans at risk. Maria Villara Salazar, Carlos Jimenez down in Miami, Corey Mills who is dealing with, he should be the next to resign from Congress. I don't know if we have time to get into everything that Corey Mills has done, but there are a number of Democrats running to challenge him and flip that seat. So the ground is really shifting in Florida. And just to put a cap on this, we have with Marco Rubio leaving the Senate to join the Trump administration, the appointment that Ron DeSantis made to make Ashley Moody our senator. Ashley Moody's seat is up for election and a special election. We also have the gubernatorial election on the ballot this year. So this is really the first time in a long time that Florida has both the governor's race, a United States Senate race, and a number of House races at play. So we really need to be putting our best foot forward and motivating as many Democrats, as many infrequent voters to turn out at polls and take advantage of this momentum that has produced so many really inspiring wins on the Democratic side in recent months.

Speaker 1:
[28:59] Yeah. When you mentioned Boca Raton being part of your district, I was like, ding, ding, ding. They just five vote mayoral win.

Speaker 3:
[29:06] Every vote matters, every single vote.

Speaker 1:
[29:08] Yeah. Don't let them tell you otherwise. They wouldn't spend billions of dollars to try to suppress it if it didn't matter. Let's shift a little bit more to your platform. Two major things that every single person that I've spoken to, that's running for Congress or Senate or the governor is running on right now, the two major things are affordability and accountability. Affordability for the people and working families of America and accountability for what this particular Trump regime has been doing, whether it's ICE or the Treasury or banning stock trades in Congress, things like that, which should go all the way up to the president and his cabinet. Talk a little bit, let's start with affordability because I know you're for Medicare for all, you're for economic justice, $25 federal minimum wage, pro-union, talk a lot about how that sets you apart, your affordability platform.

Speaker 3:
[29:56] Yeah, I think it's the universality of these programs. I think for too many years, Democrats have fallen in the trap of deciding who qualifies for what program and who gets left out. And that creates an environment where Republicans can exploit and say, this person's getting this thing that they don't deserve and you're not even eligible for it, so why should you pay your tax dollars for it? We hear that in so many instances. When it comes to health care, when it comes to education, getting Pell grants and help with college tuition. So I think really what grounds our campaign and what sets us apart is we're fighting for those big universal programs that benefit every single American. If a billionaire is paying their taxes, of course, they're going to be included in Medicare for All. That's just the universality of the program. And really, I think what we need as a country to rebuild some bonds of solidarity with one another. When Republicans are, they exploit the division, they exploit the dividing people up based on who gets what and who deserves what. So that's really, I think, where we need to ground ourselves with education for all, college for all, Medicare for all, universal childcare, paid family and medical leave. These are all things, by the way, that the United States stands alone as the wealthiest nation in the world, not to guarantee many of these things that are rights in other country. Medicare for all, I'm sure I don't need to tell your listeners, but we are the highest income nation not to guarantee healthcare is a right, and we pay twice as much as any other country. And you go on down the list, the United States is unique in not offering things like paid family and medical leave. And so I think just fighting for the universality of these things is the way forward to really build a bigger democratic tent and win more people over, and see that this is the party that's fighting for the working class, and the working class makes up the majority of Americans. So when it comes to accountability, I was very proud to spend the four years of the Biden administration supporting the campaign of then representative, now Senator Adam Schiff. I was hired two months after the January 6th insurrection. So as Adam Schiff was sitting on the January 6th committee, we were seeking accountability. We were also taking this message to the voters across the country, raising money for Senate candidates, for House candidates, to really further the goals of the Biden administration when he was elected in 2020 after a very fraught first Donald Trump term. So I think with accountability, I've worked across all segments of the Democratic Party. And I think one thing that unites us is our assessment that this Trump administration is the most corrupt in American history. The level of impunity that we're seeing with these ICE agents and the pardons of January 6th insurrectionists like I mentioned. I mean, I remember from history and my school studies that after the Civil War, there were mass pardons of Confederates. And what did that lead to? It led to Jim Crow. It led to United States racial apartheid that it really took a century and the civil rights movement to break out from that. So I think we're on a very dangerous track right now. So we need accountability for violations within the Trump administration of those who are violating our civil rights. It starts with the very top, with Kristi Noem, with Tom Homan, with now Mark Wayne Mullin and the Trump allies that are overseeing these government agencies that are violating our rights. But it goes down to unmasking these ICE officers and removing things like immunity for law enforcement officers so that when they violate our civil rights, Americans can have our day in court and hold them accountable and hold our government accountable. And I think this also goes on the campaign side as well to the issue of money and politics. We just saw Elon Musk spend $275 million to elect a president of his preference. That cannot exist in the United States if we're going to remain a democracy and really claw ourselves back from the brink of fascism, which we are rapidly descending into. So we need to reform our campaign finance system, which is another clear contrast between myself and Congressman Moskowitz, who shares many of the same donors as Donald Trump. With these FEC reports that just came out, I mentioned Jared Moskowitz was the first Democrat in Congress to join the Doge Caucus, he just got a $10,000 pack check from Elon Musk's company, SpaceX. So these are the things that we need to really confront within our own party and have an even standard of accountability applied to take on the corruption that exists in the American political system, whether there's Republicans or Democrats.

Speaker 1:
[34:32] Yeah, and we've seen a lot of dark money come in, other races and other primaries and other states and localities to push out certain candidates, to elevate other candidates, to siphon votes off of certain candidates, because as much as these crypto guys and APAC and everybody really wants a certain candidate and they really don't want progressive candidates to come in. But we've shown that people power beats money power. We saw it in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race last year, where Elon dumped 10s of millions of dollars into there, basically lit millions of dollars on fire. We saw it in New York with the election of Mayor Mom Donnie when the Cuomo machine came in with 10s of millions of dollars. So I'm really looking forward to these kinds of races. Just one last thing, because I'm a little gun shy here in, figuratively speaking, in California, because we have an all-party primary. This primary that you're running in, which takes place, let's see, August 18th?

Speaker 3:
[35:28] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[35:29] This is not an all-party primary, right? There's going to be a Democrat that gets advanced to the general election. Is that correct?

Speaker 3:
[35:35] That's right. Florida is a closed primary state. So that's also a great incentive for us to convince people to join the Democratic Party. All the young college students at Florida Atlantic University and Broward College that I'm talking to, we're giving them a reason to join the Democratic Party when young people, more often than not, they're not choosing the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, they're choosing non-party affiliated. They're sick of the two-party system, but that's more reason to get involved to elect candidates of our preference. So we have a closed primary system. We need everyone to register as a Democrat by July 20th in order to participate in our election. And if you're voting in a Democratic primary, that is a great primer to then turn back out and vote on November 3rd to help win this race and also many of the other important statewide races that we have going on across Florida.

Speaker 1:
[36:24] Yeah, and I think my message there is that in this particular primary, you can vote with your whole heart. You don't have to worry about whether or not a Democrat is going to be on the ballot, which we're kind of contending with here in California after Swalwell dropped out, as he should. But I think that that's really important. I recently had a Senate candidate on that's running as a progressive and was saying, look, I might not win, but even if I don't, what a great message that you could send to the donor class about how many people could, if I could pull for 15, 20 percent, what an important message that sends to the donor class. But I love that I'm going to try to work to change the all-party primary that we have here in California because I hate that we have to consider who's polling ahead or who's most likely to win before we worry about the things that we want to vote our hearts on. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody in Florida's 23rd knows that. Where can everybody find and follow your campaign, get more information about your platform, more detailed information about your accountability and affordability ideas? Let everybody know.

Speaker 3:
[37:29] Yeah, www.oliverforcongress.com. That also has links to our social media, so you can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Twitter, Facebook, what have you. That also has links to all of our events. So all of our public events that we sync up through Mobilize, so our town hall schedule, our phone banking, our volunteer canvassing, where we're going door to door in the community and having meet and greets and things of that nature. So people can find all of that on oliverforcongress.com. That's also where they can ship in.

Speaker 1:
[37:58] Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate your time.

Speaker 3:
[38:02] Yeah. Thank you so much, Allison.

Speaker 1:
[38:03] All right, everybody, stick around. We'll be right back with the good news. Everybody welcome back. It's time for the good news. And if you have any good news or good trouble suggestions, or corrections that you want to send our way, especially pronunciation corrections, or a shout out maybe to a loved one, a spouse, a great family member that's doing amazing things, an activist in your community that you're really proud to know, a nonprofit you want us to know about, a small business in your area who could use a boost, especially maybe on the Saturday after May Day. You know, I think a lot of small businesses are going to close down, maybe you want to shout out a small business that's participating so that maybe they can do a small business Saturday after that or something like that. Anything that you have at all, send it to us at dailybeanspod.com, click on contact. All you got to do is submit a photo. That's all you got to do to pay your pod pet tariff. And it can be a photo of anything. Traditionally, we ask for photos of your pets and your fur babies, but it can be a random animal on the Internet, it can be baby photos, family pictures, photos of you at a no kings rally, your favorite signs you saw the last time you went to a protest, or those overpass protest signs that we keep seeing. Those are so amazing. I love those and that people are organizing those. So it could be your garden, your chickens, your goats, what you're knitting, crocheting, quilting, anything, anything at all. Send it to us, dailybeanspod.com, click on contact. First up is Your Good Trouble. This is from Sarah in Pronoun, She and Her. Hi, Allison and Dana. I can't even, I don't even know what my name is anymore.

Speaker 2:
[39:50] It's okay, I forget often.

Speaker 1:
[39:51] Here's a way folks can address democracy, the midterms and the planet all at once. There's a surge of scientists, many of whom were ousted by Trump and Doge, who are now running for various political offices. I learned this from an article in Mother Jones. Not only are these scientists part of the Stand Up for Science movement, but there also is a campaign fund, 314 Action, because 3.14 is pi, that specifically backs Democratic candidates with science backgrounds. They have not been getting much media traction and could really use a boost in attention. So here are links to 314 Action, Stand Up for Science and the article in Mother Jones. They're all going to be in the show notes, 314action.org, standupforscience.net, and a link to the Mother Jones article. For my pod pet tariff, I thought I'd keep the theme with the first photo. This is from my much loved career as a wildlife researcher back in the day. It's me with a red-shouldered hawk, one of many birds we radio tagged to track during a project in Florida. The second one is similar in that it's also me with a bird, but this time it's a chestnut-sided chickadee landing on my hand for some seed.

Speaker 2:
[40:57] Cutie pie. I think I did that near P-Town, Massachusetts. I don't know if they were the chickadees, but they sit on little fingertips and eat sunflower seeds out of your hand. It's just cuties little things.

Speaker 1:
[41:09] Look at this. I mean, just the span of time and the love for birds.

Speaker 2:
[41:15] It's beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[41:17] Fantastic. Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate you.

Speaker 2:
[41:19] All right. Next up from Carolyn, no pronouns given. Greetings, Beans Queens. A pronunciation update on Maury, as in Maury Island. It's Maury. Thank you, Maury. Like Maury, Amsterdam from the old Dick Van Dyke show. Not only that, but I just bought tickets to go down to Rainy Day Rabbit Hole on June 3rd in Tacoma.

Speaker 1:
[41:40] Hell yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:41] For my pod pet tax burden, I will include a photo of a very good boy who lives right there on Maury Island. Errol retired from 10 years of service as the King County, Washington courthouse dog, helping people navigate the very stressful judicial system in Seattle. By the way, Maury Island has an awesome troll overseeing all good things in his fabulous realm. Hugs to you both.

Speaker 1:
[42:11] Okay. I love the idea of a courthouse dog.

Speaker 2:
[42:14] Me too.

Speaker 1:
[42:16] Look at this baby. Hi, Errol. Sweet black lab, I'm guessing. Carolyn, thank you for that. Maury. Got it. Maury, like Maury Povich. All right. Next up, Diane, pronouns she and her. Listening to Dana talk about hungry and anti-LGBT stuff, I had a lighthearted moment when I misheard Dana say, crime time TV.

Speaker 2:
[42:37] Sounds right.

Speaker 1:
[42:38] Which made me think of either general coverage of the Trump administration or Fox News. Thank you for the giggle, for the misheard lyrics as I drove in traffic. Podpet tax is the baby birds on my front porch. Look.

Speaker 2:
[42:52] They're so amazing.

Speaker 1:
[42:53] You know what I want to do? I want to do the thing where cat moms, you know when you brush your cat, you get all this fluff, and you can put it in like a, wrap it in like a chicken wire ball and hang it outside so birds can come and take the cat fluff to make their nests.

Speaker 2:
[43:06] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[43:07] I want to do that.

Speaker 2:
[43:08] Let's do it.

Speaker 1:
[43:09] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[43:09] Do it. All right, this is from Phil, pronouncing him, Dear Beanie Queenies, first of all, keep up all the good work you do. I have been a daily listener to all your podcasts since early 2017. I'm a professor of political science who's currently on sabbatical in Budapest. And since I am slowly working on learning the extraordinarily different Hungarian language, I thought I'd better address your all's uncertainty regarding the pronunciation of hotter society. Here we go. The good news is that Hungarian pronunciation is very precise, and the spelling is completely phonetic. Oh, in that case, I'm hatter. A couple of pointers here, maybe. Emphasize always on the first syllable. The accent over a vowel indicates a long vowel.

Speaker 1:
[43:54] Hater. Hater. Hater. Hater. Hater.

Speaker 2:
[43:58] Okay. Keep going. Double consonants are pronounced long. In the case of a hard consonant like T, basically pause a little before voicing it. Okay. Roll your Rs. Oh, Jesus Christ. This is not making this any easier for me. So basically, hatter. That was pretty close. Hatter. There we go. For more background on the society and the great work they've been doing for the last three decades go here. We're going to have a link in the show notes because I'm not going to say that again. Note further that the name, here we go, Magyar, which is also the Hungarian word for Hungarian, is indeed pronounced Magyar. Great. In English. However, if you want to be extra clever, the GY in Hungarian is often a soft G. So it's probably Magyar. Magyar.

Speaker 1:
[44:47] Magyar.

Speaker 2:
[44:48] Magyar. Thank you. Oh, right. The G.

Speaker 1:
[44:52] Like bonjourno.

Speaker 2:
[44:53] Okay. There you go. Much like G. There you go. In bonjourno. I got that. Bonjourno. But is pronounced more like a soft D, like in judge.

Speaker 1:
[45:03] Oh, so like Magyar.

Speaker 2:
[45:05] There you go. The unaccented A's are short. I feel like I'm failing English so bad during this right now.

Speaker 1:
[45:14] If the accent in Hátyr means it's a long letter, is it Há or is it Háytyr? Háytyr.

Speaker 2:
[45:21] Maybe it's probably that.

Speaker 1:
[45:23] I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[45:24] Okay. We're going to get a correction on this correction. I was very fortunate to be in Budapest on a Sunday evening as the election results were announced. The energy in the streets was really invigorating, something I really needed as a Minnesotan who teaches in Michigan, a swing state. I have attached my favorite picture from that evening, which portrays local youth destroying Fidesz posters.

Speaker 1:
[45:46] Yeah, that's the party, that's the Orban's party, Fidesz.

Speaker 2:
[45:49] Fidesz, thank you. Posters accompanying by the following dialogue, get in the picture. And I quote, I should explain, the reason we are tearing these up is because, can't find his words. Because fuck that guy, is what this person said. Get in the picture, doubles over laughing.

Speaker 1:
[46:07] We're tearing these up because, because that guy? Yeah. Yep, indeed. How fantastic. Look at that. That's incredible. All right. Hatir. I was just watching Spanglish. Have you seen it?

Speaker 2:
[46:22] No.

Speaker 1:
[46:23] It's such a great film with Adam Sandler and the woman's name, the main character, the protagonist, her name is Flor. And she's trying to teach her boss how to say it. And she's like, Flor. She's like, Flor. Flor. She's trying to teach her how to roll her R's. And it's just so fantastic. Anyway, great film. Next up, from Lowe, pronouns she, her, hers. I won't be able to fully participate in May Day as I'm taking the last final of my first year in pharmacy school. Yeah, I don't miss your final. But I plan to join as soon as I get out. It's been hard to go back as a non-traditional student, but I'm so proud of myself. So my shout out is for me. I love self shout outs. I also want to bring to attention SciStarter, S-C-I, scistarter.org. I found out about them from my local library and they have citizen science projects. They're trying to get 2.5 million acts of science by April 30th for the 250th anniversary of America, of the United States, I should say. And while I do not celebrate America's birthday most years, I feel like this is a great way to get involved in citizen science projects. Some are just minutes long. That's so cool, acts, random acts of science. Thank you again for all you do. This is usually one of the only podcasts I can listen to on the way to school in the mornings and NPR, yay, public radio. Keep on spreading the news in the best way possible. Also attached, my demon dog. And yet the sweetest girl in the whole world. Baby girl is her name. She's a shelter pup who turned out to be a full blank after I did the dog DNA test. Is that a Staffordshire terrier or?

Speaker 2:
[47:58] Every time I say pity, it's a Staffordshire, so let's go with Staffordshire.

Speaker 1:
[48:01] Okay, let's see. American Staffordshire terrier. There we go. To be fair, where the redaction bar was so long, it couldn't have been Pitbull.

Speaker 2:
[48:10] That's fair. It could have been, it's a cute Pitbull.

Speaker 1:
[48:14] This is like back in the day when we're trying to look like, try to guess what the redaction bars are under the Mueller report. We're like, it's too many letters for Manafort, but it's not enough for Trump.

Speaker 2:
[48:23] That's funny.

Speaker 1:
[48:25] Yeah, so now we do it with pets instead.

Speaker 2:
[48:27] All right, this is Dave pronouncing him. Just a quick note to celebrate the passing of a loving, smart cat named Lily. She brought joy to her owners for 19 years, will be greatly missed, attaches a picture of the day she came home and a picture of her with her best buddy Billy. Lily was named in honor of Lily Ledbetter. Goodyear and Supreme Court did her wrong, but her story led to the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Remember, when this country could do good things? Yeah. That is a sweet little kitten. And look at that sweet little cat.

Speaker 1:
[49:01] Oh, stretchy baby cuddles. No, no. Oh, yeah. Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. I do remember we could do good things. I was looking forward to it this year and last year, but the election went the wrong way. Yeah. All right, next up, Emma's mom and dad. Hi, Beans Queens. We'd like to shout out our daughter Emma. She turns 21 on Monday. 12 days later, she graduates from college a year ahead of her peers and debt free. She saved her money from working on a farm and lifeguarding, sometimes putting in 70 to 80 hour weeks in the summer to do so. Emma put in the hard work to graduate from high school a semester early. She did the same thing in college by figuring out how to balance her classes and work and taking classes over the summer. My goodness, Emma. She has had several challenges. This reminds us me of Jay, the 16 year old we had on. How much can you do? This is incredible. She had several challenges and trade-offs to make this happen, but has persevered. This summer, she starts the next chapter of her life, pursuing her masters in athletic training and physical therapy. Her chosen profession. Emma's goal is to work with high school athletes, helping to provide the support they need after an injury. Happy birthday, Emma, and congratulations. For my podpet tariff, I'm including a couple pictures of Emma and her dog, Pluto relaxing. Ninth in the litter and the smallest. That's why she chose him. Get it? Pluto, ninth, and yes, named after the former planet. I don't care. I still think it's a planet. That's why I'm sticking with it.

Speaker 2:
[50:34] That's fair.

Speaker 1:
[50:35] The breed is blank. Not sure if he's purebred, we got him from the Amish. Love, Emma's mom and dad. Look at this sweet baby.

Speaker 2:
[50:42] The little ears say healer, but the rest of it I'm not sure of. But it's a small little bar.

Speaker 1:
[50:48] Yeah, well, let's see what we got behind the bar. Blue healer, Dana.

Speaker 2:
[50:52] It's the blue one.

Speaker 1:
[50:54] We are 100% on dog.

Speaker 2:
[50:56] We rocked what the mutt today. I'm talking rocked it.

Speaker 1:
[50:59] I can knock it out of the park.

Speaker 2:
[51:01] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[51:03] Amazing. Thank you all so much for your good news. Sending all these photos really brings a smile to our faces and I know we really need it right now. So please continue to send in your good news at dailybeanspod.com by clicking on contact. And if you want to become a supporting patron, all of our stuff is always free, but if you want to kick in like NPR style and help support us, you can do that by going to patreon.com/thedailybeans. And then you can be invited to like our happy hours on Zoom calls. We're having one on Thursday, April 30th. And Dana, you're going to be there. Harry's going to be there.

Speaker 2:
[51:34] I'll be there.

Speaker 1:
[51:35] Tickets and links to our galas and events. We're doing our first one on June 20th of this year. Tickets for that will be available and the links will be sent out to patrons. It's Saturday, April 25th at noon, precisely at noon Pacific 3 Eastern, because it's going to be a first come first serve thing. And our special guest, everyone's going to want to see. So I'm really looking forward to that. That's all I've got for today. Everybody, do you have anything else you want to add Dana?

Speaker 2:
[52:01] Just a little reminder in May, my two shows, my two stand up shows, I should say, that I'm headlining in Dallas May 10th and then Rochester, New York May 17th. There's still tickets left for both of those at danagoldberg.com. Hit my tour schedule and you can get them there.

Speaker 1:
[52:14] Yes, and also make sure you follow DG Comedy on all the socials.

Speaker 2:
[52:18] Yes, please.

Speaker 1:
[52:19] And you have a Patreon.

Speaker 2:
[52:21] I do have a Patreon.

Speaker 1:
[52:22] The Dugout.

Speaker 2:
[52:23] I do. If you're new to this podcast or you just never heard about this, The Dugout is where my people go and we hang out. And I share backstage stuff with you about my career and I send out newsletters about what's going on in my life and tell you about upcoming shows. And you get first hit for tickets for shows in the future. And you get all kinds of cool swag at the levels of the first base, second base, third base. Some of you have hit a home run with me. Good for you. Yeah. So it's some fun stuff. And we have so many members over there. And I'm just happy to have you as part of the community. So you can go to danagoldberg.com, hit my Patreon and become part of The Dugout. Our team is The Dissenters and I love them. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:04] Community is just so vital right now. So I love The Dugout. Thank you all so much. We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, and take care of your family. I've been AG.

Speaker 2:
[53:16] I've been DG.

Speaker 1:
[53:17] And them's The Beans. You know, my people are telling me I should start using my whole name instead of Allison Gill, because nobody, when I introduce myself, they're like, I don't know who Allison Gill is.

Speaker 2:
[53:27] Oh. Well, we can change it.

Speaker 1:
[53:30] I don't know. I still like I'm an AG.

Speaker 2:
[53:32] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:33] Anyway, them's The Beans.

Speaker 2:
[53:34] Oh. Yeah, you know, that was part of the show.

Speaker 1:
[53:37] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[53:39] Bye, everybody.

Speaker 1:
[53:40] Okay, bye. The Daily Beans is written and executive produced by Allison Gill with additional research and reporting by Dana Goldberg. Sound design and editing is by Desiree McFarlane, with art and web design by Joelle Reader with Moxie Design Studios. Music for The Daily Beans is written and performed by They Might Be Giants and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator-owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit mswmedia.com. MSW Media.